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BEITISH SENATORS 

OR, 

POLITICAL SKETCHES, 

PAST AND PRESENT. 



BRITISH SENATORS 



POLITICAL SKETCHES, 



PAST AND PRESENT. 



J 



J. EWING RITCHIE. 



" For these are the men that when they have played their parts, and had their 
exits, must step out and give the moral of their scenes, and deliver unto posterity 
an inventory of their virtues and vices."— Sib Thomas Bbowne. 



/ 

LONDON: 

TINSLEY BROTHERS, 18, CATHERINE STREET, STRAND. 
1869. 

lAll righta of Translation and Reproduction reserved.^ 



.7?^ 



LONDON : 

SAVILL, EDWARDS AND CO., PRINTERS, CHANDOS STREET, 

COVEN X GARDEN. 



TO 



EBENEZER HOMAN, Esq., 



THIS BOOK IS GRATEFULLY, 



AND WITH JI U C H ESTEEM, 



^£buat«i>. 



PREFACE. 




HE wi'iter lias a few words of explanation to 
offer. 

This book consists of sketches^ some of 
which appeared some years ago, and which have been 
by many subsequent writers so widely adapted — one 
gentleman in particular taking page after page 
without the slightest acknowledgment or sign of 
quotation ; others, merely terming the writer " an 
intelligent auditor/^ that to assure himself of his own 
identity he has reproduced them, with others written 
and published at a later date — of Members of Parlia- 
ment, who, if they do not come under the denomina- 
tion of " Modern Statesmen,^'' may yet be described as 
British Senators. Of many here delineated, some have 
ceased to be M.P.^s, others have become Peers, others 
are deceased, — on the whole, however, the writer has 
thought it best to let the sketches remain, with some 
slight alterations, as they were originally written. 

One word more. This book is not intended for 
clever critics, but for country people who like to know 



viii Preface. 

a little about Members of Parliament and the way in 
wbicb they transact business. The reader will also 
please to remember that when these sheets were 
passing through the press a change occurred — the 
effect of which has been to place on one side of the 
Speaker^s chair those whom the author in his want of 
political foresight had seated on the other. 

Ivy Cottage, Ballakd's Lane, Finchley. 
Dec. 21, 1868. 




CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

PAGB 

INSIDE THE HOUSE 1 

CHAPTER II. 

THE CONSERVATIVES 

THE RIGHT HON. BENJAMIN DISRAELI ... 12 

LOUD STANLEY 25 

SIR JOHN PAKINGTON 34 

THE RT. HON. SPENCER HORATIO WALPOLE . 42 

CHAPTER III. 



OFFICIAL LIBERALS — 

THE RT. HON. W. E. GLADSTONE 
THE RT. HON. ROBERT LOWE 
THE RT. HON. JAMES STANSFELD 
MR. H. AUSTEN LAYARD . 
THE RT. HON. EDWARD CARDWELL 
THE BIGHT HON. G. J. GOSCHEN 
THE RT. HON. SIR ROBERT PEEL 
CHARLES GILPIN, ESQ. . 



48 

61 

68 
75 

83 
87 
93 
99 



X Contents. 



PAOB 

THE RT. HON. HENRY BRAND 106 

THE RT. HON. JOHN BRIGHT 116 

CHAPTER lY. 

INDEPENDENT LIBERALS 

JACOB BRIGHT^ ESQ 130 

PETER TAYLOR, ESQ 134 

JAMES WHITE, ESQ 140 

GEORGE MELLY, ESQ 145 

THOMAS HUGHES, ESQ 151 

ACTON SMEE AYRTON, ESQ 157 

EDWARD BAINES, ESQ 162 

HENRY SELF PAGE WINTERBOTHAM, ESQ. . . 171 

JOSEPH COWEN, ESQ 177 

MR. ALDERMAN LUSK 182 

SIR FRANCIS CROSSLEY 188 

CHAPTER Y. 

THE PROTESTANT PARTY 

MR. NEWDEGATE 197 

GEORGE H. WHALLEY, ESQ 205 

CHAPTER YI. 

NEW MEMBERS 

CHARLES REED, ESQ. . 213 

SAMUEL MORLEY, ESQ 2l8 

HENRY RICHARD, ESQ 225 

W. m'aRTHUR, ESQ 233 



XI 



CHAPTER VII. 

MEPg^ WHO HAVE BEEN M.p/s 

THE RT. HON, T. MILNER GIBSON .... 239 

JOHN ARTHUR ROEBUCK 249 

MR. BERNAL OSBORNE 261 

EDWARD MIALL, ESQ 267 

THE RT. HON. EDWARD HORSMAN . . ... 273 

WILLIAM S. LINDSAY, ESQ 280 

THE RT. HON. JAMES WHITESIDE .... 287 

JOHN STUART MILL, ESQ 295 

CHAPTER Vlfl. 

MEMBERS WHO HAVE BECOME PEERS 

LORD JOHN RUSSELL 302 

SIR BULWER LYTTON 324 

CHAPTER IX. 

DECEASED MEMBERS 

LORD PALMERSTON 333 

SIR JAMES GRAHAM 351 

W. JOHNSON FOX 359 

RICHARD COBDEN 366 

MR. THOMAS S. DUNCOMBE 382 

HENRY DRUMMOND . . ' 388 

SIR CHARLES NAPIER 399 

SIR CORNEWALL LEWIS 410 

THE RT. HON. SIDNKY HERBERT .... 417 



BRITISH SENATORS. 



CHAPTER I. 



mSIDE THE HOUSE. 



j*^S ARLIAMENT has met ; and it is scarcely 
1^^ necessary to observe that its proceedings have 
seldom been regarded with gi'eater curiosity 
or interest. The people have unmistakeably declared 
themselves in favour of Mr. Gladstone and his measures. 
I propose, then, gentle and intelligent reader, to get you 
into the House of Commons, not by means of bribery, 
or corruption, or intimidation ; and to give you an idea 
of what it is like, and how its proceedings are carried on. 
Let us assume, then, we have made our way, with 
a Member's order, as far as Westminster Palace. The 
House commences at four, but if the business of the 
evening promises to be of interest you had better be 
there some hours previously, as each Member has the 
right to give an order, and the chances are that five or 
six times more tickets have been given than the 
Strangers' Gallery can hold. You will then be stowed 



the House. 



away in a cellar under the care of the police^ and as 
it is too dark to read^ and in summer time too sultry 
to talk, your chief amusement will consist in sucking 
orangesj of which I beg you to have enough. Happily 
there is an end to all things, even to the dreary wait- 
ing for a place in Parliament. A little before four 
you will hear the tinkling of a bell, which indicates 
the Speaker, preceded by the mace and followed by 
the train-bearer and chaplain (the latter looking as 
if the place agreed with him), has marched through 
the lobby, greatly to the astonishment of the vulgar, 
has entered the House, and is now at prayers. That 
operation over, the Strangers' Gallery is opened, in 
small detachments you are marched up to it, and you 
are inside the House. 

Let us look about us. It is certainly an elegant 
and spacious chamber, not gorgeously ornamented, but 
looking what an Englishman always likes to see, 
thoroughly respectable. Just before you is the 
Speaker's Gallery, the occupants of which have com- 
fortable cushioned seats, — here in the Strangers 
Gallery we have only the bare boards to sit on ; be- 
fore them is another gallery, devoted to ambassadors 
and peers, and on each side are galleries, generally 
empty, where members come and have a quiet nap, 
or a little gossip, and which are crowded only when a 
great crisis is at hand, and the House is thronged and 
expectant. Exactly opposite the gallery in which we 
are seated is that devoted to reporters. It has two 



Inside the House. 3 

rows : in the front sit the reporters actually engaged ; 
behind are those who are waiting to take their places. 
Each reporter in the front row has a cosy little box to 
himself. Altogether there may be about thirty present. 
They are taking it easy now ; they will have to work 
hard enough by-and-by. Above the reporters there 
is a lattice-work partition, behind which we can see 
faintly the dim outline of female forms ; and if you 
chance to be in the Reporters' Gallery under, you will 
occasionally hear the murmur of melodious voices. 
Before the new House was builtj ladies had to resort 
to odd stratagems to get inside. An old lady of my 
acquaintance, when a girl, often attended parlia- 
mentary debates, but then she adopted male attire, 
and did not wear a chignon ! And now let us look 
a little higher, and glance at the ceiling. It is 
formed of beautifully stained glass, and when the 
shades of evening draw nigh it is lighted up as if by 
enchantment, and sends down upon all a flood of 
mellowed light, clearer and brighter than what may, 
by a stretch of courtesy and imagination, be deno- 
minated as that of day. 

But it is time we look at the Commons themselves. 
There they are before us,, the real rulers of England, 
and of that world-wide realm which owns an English 
Queen and speaks the English tongue. Most of them 
are gentlemen and men of honour, and have little to 
fear from an enlarged constituency, or from the rapid 
growth of democratic power. Old families and tcrri- 

B 2 



4 Inside the House. 

torial traditions will always have weight in this land 
of ours. During the Regency, who was the champion 
of the people ? Sir Francis Burdett. Was not 
Charles James Fox the son of a peer? Who rejected 
Burke ? The tradesmen of Bristol. When the battle 
of Reform was fought under William IV., by whom 
did the nation swear but by the aristocrat Lord John 
Russell, and that still greater aristocrat Earl Grey ? 
In our time, who fought the battle of the factory 
children better than Lord Ashley, now the Earl of 
Shaftesbury ? Under any measure of Reform, we 
believe that the House of Commons will be as truly 
national an assembly as ever. 

Seated in his chair of state, wearing wig and gown, 
is the Speaker — a gentleman of commanding presence 
and of good voice, and whose power of endurance 
must be far greater than yours or mine, as he has to 
sit out the long weary debates, and has to maintain 
order all the while. Nearly a hundred years ago a 
wit in the RoUiad wrote of the Speaker : — 

" There Cornwall sits, and oh, uiLhappy fate ! 
Must sit for ever throngli the long debate. 
Painful pre-eminence ! he hears, 'tis true, 
Fox, ITorth, and Biirke — but hears Sii* Joseph, too. 
Like sad Prometheus fa'stened to his rock, 
In vain he looks for pity to the clock ; 
In vain the effect of strengthening porter tries, 
And sends to Bellamy for fresh supplies." 

And the language is applicable now. In fi'ont and 
beneath the Speaker are two or three clerks, who keep 



Inside the House. 5 

the records of tlie House, and store the petitions and 
other papers members bring them, in large bags pro- 
vided for the purpose. In front of the clerks is a 
massive table, at the end of which lies the mace, 
and on which are the mysterious-looking boxes on 
which Ministers are so fond of thumping when an 
oratorical climax has been achieved. On each side 
are ranges of gradually ascending benches for the 
Ministerial and Opposition Members. The front row 
is occupied by the respective leaders, Mr. Disraeli 
sitting in the middle, on the right-hand side of the 
Speaker ; and on the left, exactly opposite, Mr. Glad- 
stone. Mr. Goschen generally sits near the latter, 
while Sir J. Pakington and Sir S. Northcote support 
the former. Just underneath the Strangers^ Gallery 
is the bar of the House, and the seat where is placed 
in full evening dress, with a sword by his side, the 
Sergeant-at-Arms ready to protect the mace and 
Speaker at the peril of his life^ or take into custody 
refractory, chiefly Irish, M.P.^s. At the further end, 
but excluded from the stranger's view, are a few rows 
of benches set aside for the accommodation of peers 
or the sons of peers ; and where, if you are lucky 
enough ever to find your way, you can hear and see 
better than you can anywhere else. Almost on a line 
with the mace is a division of the benches on which 
the members are seated. Those of them on the seats 
nearest us in the Strangers' Gallery arc said to sit 
below the gangway. Their occupants arc cliicfiy on 



6 Inside the House. 

the Ministerial side — Irish M.P/s— and on the Opposi- 
tion side the more advanced Liberals^ such as John 
Brightj his brother Jacobs Mr. Bazley, James 
White^ Peter Taylor^ and many of the Dissenting 
M.P/s, who, if not seated below the gangway, 
generally sit as near to it as possible, as if for the 
purpose of reminding the Liberals they had better 
mind how they deal with Church questions. Mr. 
Horsman complained last year that he and his friends 
had not a place to themselves. This was true, but 
generally the Cave Adullamites were seated below the 
gangway just in front. All eyes turn anxiously in 
this direction. All strangers ask at once for Mr. 
Bright; next to him, I think, as objects of attraction, 
are the chiefs of parties — pre-eminently, of course, 
Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Disraeli. The latter has an 
imperturbable face. It is rarely it gives any signs of 
feeling. Nothing seems to excite his interest or 
attention, except when he darts upon his legs. The 
former is far more eager and excitable ; his vitality is 
almost irrepressible. Leaning forward — with pen and 
paper in hand — he seems to watch and take note of 
everything. Last session strangers saw Mr. Mill, Mr. 
Eoebuck, and Mr. Bernal Osborne — now banished— 
thanks to the fickleness of the democracies of West- 
minster, and Nottingham, and Sheffield. 

And now let us see how they manage their business 
in St. Stephen^s. As we have entered early, petitions 
are being presented. The Speaker names a gentle- 



Inside the 



man ; he rises, reads the name of the petition he has 
to present ; the Speaker then, unless opposition be 
manifested, orders that "it do lie upon the table, ''^ — 
in reality it is, as we have abeady said, popped into 
the bag. The petitions over, then comes the time for 
asking Ministers questions, more or less unpleasant, 
and to give notices of motion. The House then begins 
its discussions on the various Bills before it, and while 
little men are speaking, the House thins off and goes 
to dine. Later in the evening it gets better filled 
again, and if the leading members speak they are 
listened to with all the attention they deserve. At 
other times the buzz of conversation often overpowers 
the voice of the orator ; and especially during the time 
allotted to private Bills or presenting petitions is the 
inattention of the House to what is going on very 
manifest. As a rule, the debates are orderly enough, 
and there is something grand in the cheers which greet 
the orator as he makes a hit in debate or resumes his 
seat after an eloquent harangue. As a rule also it 
may be added that it is only easy to get into the 
House when there is scarcely anything worth hearing, 
and that when you are there, as soon as you have 
satisfied your curiosity, and had a good look at the 
M.P.'s and the reporters, you arc not sorry to find the 
House adjourning, and to hear the well-known accents 
of the respected doorkeeper, " Who goes home V 

The Cabinet is the Government, and while some of 
the members are in the House of Commons, others 



8 Inside the House. 

adorn tlie House of Lords. As a rule the Cabinet 
does not constitute more than a fourth part of those 
whom a change of Ministry deprives of office. The 
members of it are more immediately responsible for 
the conduct of public affairs, their deliberations are 
always confidential and kept secret even from their 
colleagues who are less exalted in office ; newspaper 
correspondents belonging to second-rate provincial 
journals alone, and by a process which would be 
wonderful if true, are the possessors of Cabinet 
secrets. They know what Under Secretaries do not. 
The distinguished, let us add the talented individual 
(for the age of mediocrities is gone by for ever,— we 
can have no more Goderichs or Liverpools at the 
Jiead of affairs), who fills the situation of the First 
Lord of the Treasury, is the chief of the Ministry, and 
therefore of the Cabinet. It is at his immediate re- 
commendation that his colleagues are appointed, and 
with scarcely any exception he dispenses the patronage 
of the Crown. Every Cabinet includes the following 
officers : the First Lord of the Treasury, the Lord 
Chancellor, the Lord President of the Council, the 
Lord Privy Seal, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, 
and the principal Secretaries of State. When Par- 
liament is sitting, all eyes of coui'se are turned to the 
Premier. " He fills,''' said Canning, " that station in 
the House of Commons which points out him who 
holds it as the representative of the Government in 
that House, the possessor of the chief confidence of 



Inside the House. 9 

the Crown and of the Ministers. His prerogative is, 
that in all doubtful questions — in all questions which 
have not previously been settled in the Cabinet, and 
which may require instant decision, he is to decide — 
upon instant communication with his colleagues sitting 
by him, if he be courteously inclined, but he is to 
decide — with or without communication with them, and 
with or against their consent/^ Not of the Cabinet are 
the remainder of the gentlemen seated very often in 
very ungraceful postures on the Treasury Bench. 
Sneer at them as you will, they are indispensable to 
that form of Parliamentary Government, which at any 
rate suits the people amongst whom it has grown. 

Before us are the nation^s chiefs — the heads of 
parties — the leaders of the people. I know not a 
more illustrious assembly, nor one which should be 
more honoured by Englishmen. I claim for it that it 
is eminently fair and many sided, and that not an 
idea flashes across the nation^s brain but is repre- 
sented here. If a man fails in the House it is his 
own fault alone. If he achieve a position it is because 
he has the requisite capacity. Not all the blood of 
all the Howards can save the fool from being laughed 
at for his folly. It recognises the true man at once. 

In days such as ours — when all things are being 
changed, when our ancient universities are ceasing to 
be sectarian, when our best and truest churchmen 
would fain make our State Church, in spite of evan- 
gelical narrowness and ritualistic folly, the Church of 



10 Inside the House. 

the nation^ — when we hear of the rights of industry as 
well as of property^ when the penny paper has quick- 
ened the intellectual life of the masses,, the House of 
Commons^ representing the living, not the dead, is a 
Liberal assembly. It was clear when Mr. Disraeli 
educated his party into giving the nation household 
suffrage and the lodger franchise^ Conservatism was 
gone. The old Conservatives, men of unsullied honour 
and of unflinching faith, such as General Peel, have 
either retired from political life, or like the Marquis 
of Salisbury have been removed into the lotus-land of 
the Upper House. Their successors, with the worn- 
out cries of No Popery and the Church in Danger, 
stand powerless and ashamed, repudiated by the 
national vote. The following table shows in the most 
unmistakeable manner to what side of politics the 
electors of the great constituencies incline : — 

Name of Constituency. No. of Electors. L. C. 

Glasgow 47,500 . . 3 

Manchester 45,000 ..21 

Bii-mingliain 42,306 . . 3 

Hackney 40,613 . . 2 

Liverpool 36,538 ..12 

Marylebone 35,575 . . 2 

Leeds 35,460 ..21 

Lambeth 33,373 . . 2 

Tower Hamlets 32,000 . . 2 

Finsbury 31,759 . . 2 

Sheffield 29,995 . . 2 

Bristol 21,153 . . 2 

Edinburgh 20,779 , . 2 

Bradford ....... 20,561 . . 2 



Inside the House. 



11 



Name of Constituency. 
"Westminster . . 
London . . . 
Soutliwark . . 
Chelsea. . . . 
"Wolverliampton 
Wednesbnry . . 
Greenwicli . . 
Salford. . . . 
Dundee. . . . 
Merthyr Tydvil . 

Hidl 

Oldham . . . 
Nottingham . . 
Bolton . . . . 
Norwich . . . 
Simderland ' . 



. of Electors. 


L. 


c. 


18,879 . 


1 


1 


18,136 . 


3 


1 


17,701 . 


2 




17,400 . 


2 




16,000 . 


2 




15,612 . 


1 




15,588 . 


2 




14,859 . 




2 


14,798 . 


2 




14,577 . 


2 




13,046 . 


2 




13,000 . 


2 




12,991 . 




2 


12,650 . 




2 


12,000 . 


1 


1 


11,464 . 


2 





53 13 

No success in tlie counties^ where the voters are 
more under clerical and landlord influence, can deprive 
these figures of significance and power. 




CHAPTER II. 

THE COKSEEYATIVES. 

THE BIGHT HON. BENJAMIN DISRAELI. 

(Buckinghamshire — unopposed.) 



OWARDS the close of tlie year 1837, a young 
man of somewhat singular appearance and 
gesticulation, broke down in his maiden 
speech in the House of Commons. Great things had 
been expected from him. In most circles he had 
contrived to get talked about — in some to be admired. 
Years before, with all the confidence of genius and 
youth, he had told the Irish O^Connell that he would 
meet him at Philippi, and the hour of that meeting 
had at length arrived. Already the young debutant 
had become remarkable for the facility with which he 
had learned to repeat the most contrary doctrines, and 
to champion interests and prejudices seemingly the 
most opposed. Marylebone had heard his declaration 
that unless the ballot and triennial parliaments were 
conceded, he could not conceive how the Legislature 
could ever be in harmony with the people. At High 
Wycombe he had told the electors that in aU financial 



The Bt. Hon. Benjamin Disraeli 13 

changes the agi'icultural interest ought especially to be 
considered; and at Taunton^ he who had appeared at 
Marylebone as the friend of Joseph Hume became the 
representative of the Duke of Buckingham and the 
Carlton Club. At Maidstone^ by the defeat of a liberal 
almost as incomprehensible as himself, he at length 
succeeded in gaining a seat in St. Stephen's. With 
pride he took his stand in the presence of the ^-Miig 
dignitaries of whom he had spoken evil, and of the 
puzzled country gentlemen who could not understand 
how their Toryism was more democratic than the 
politics of the Whigs who were wont to drink to civil 
and religious liberty all over the world, and to toast 
the people as the only source of legitimate power. 
Not merely also in the troubled walk of politics, or as 
the paradoxical commentator on the English constitu- 
tion, or, as in " Runnymede," the most keen dissector 
of the materiel of the Whig cabinet, was the aspirant 
for parliamentary laurels known to fame. In the 
world of fashion and of literature he had already become 
notorious for the piquancy and satire of his novels. 
The speaker also was a dandy — there were dandies in 
1837 — and therefore was to be regarded with curiosity. 
The Conservatives mustered in considerable numbers 
to back their new man. On the Whig benches there 
was awe and expectation. Sir Robert Peel cheered 
the youthful orator with most stentorian tones. Alas ! 
in vain was the cheer ; the d6but was a failure. The 
exaggerated attitude and diction of the speaker excited 



14 The Conservatives. 

tmiversal ridicule. At length, losing his temper and 
pausing in the midst of his harangue, Disraeli — for it 
is he of whom we write — at the top of his voice ex- 
claimed, as he resumed his seat, baffled, beaten, de- 
rided, but not despairing, ^^ Though I sit down now, 
the time will come when you will hear me/^ It is not 
always such predictions are realized. In this case, 
however, it was no empty boast. The man thus ridi- 
culed and coughed at, thus rejected and despised, was 
he who lived to hurl at Sir Robert Peel the fiercest 
phihppics known in modern parliamentary annals, and 
who, by his mere strength of brain, lifted himself up 
to be the leader of the renowned historic party which 
had been illustrated by the splendid eloquence of a 
Bolingbroke and the administrative skiU of a Pitt. 

Seated on the Opposition benches, half-way down, 
with some smaU-brained son of a duke by his side, 
night after night may be seen the leader of Her 
Majesty^s Opposition. Generally, his eyes are cast 
down, his hands are crossed in front, and he has all 
the appearance of a statue. Cold, passionless, he 
seems of an alien race — a stranger to the hopes, and 
fears, and interests of a British House of Commons. 
You wonder how he got there, and how the Tyrrels, 
and Spooners, and Newdegates, and the rosy-cheeked 
country gentlemen could have borne banners under 
such as he. However fierce the debate, or heated the 
House, or pressing the crisis, there sits Disraeli, occa- 
sionally looking at his hands or the clock — otherwise 



The Rf. Hon. Benjamin Disraeli. 15 

silent^ unmoved; and still. Yet an Indian scout could 
not keep a more vigilant watch — and immediately an 
opportunity occurs^ lie is on his legs, boiling with real 
or affected indignation. I say real or affected, because 
Disraeli has so much of the artist about him that you 
never know whether he is in earnest or not. 

As an illustration, let me refer to the debate which 
ensued on Lord John RusselFs diplomatic proceedings 
at Vienna. It was amusing to see how, at such times, 
with an elaborate deference all the bitterer for its 
transparent hollowness, Disraeli would turn to Lord 
John, and leaning confidentially against the table, 
pour out against the miserable little man, now looking 
veiy angry, all the invective which his folly justified 
and requii-ed. Such a situation can only be shadowed 
forth by simile. Lord John seemed as you can 
imagine the traveller in the desert overtaken and 
whirled along by the fierce simoom ; or as the hapless 
voyager caught in his frail bark in the Mediterranean 
in a white squall, and entombed for ever beneath its 
unpitying waves ; or, if you are not a traveller, and 
have ever seen him in such a plight, as some poor 
Cockney with his Easter Monday garments on, in a 
hea-sy storm of rain and hail on Primrose Hill or 
Hampstcad Heath. Disraeli used no sugared plnases, 
no mincing terms, no artifice, to veil his contempt ; 
and the noble scion of the House of Bedford Avas com- 
pelled for a couple of hours to sit through a hell such 
as only a Dante could descriljc, or a Fuscli or a Martin 



16 The Conservatives. 

paint. You thouglit of the Indian dancing on the 
dead body of his prostrate foe ; of yourself at a respec- 
table dinner-party, in tight boots and with aching 
cornSj seated between two strong-minded females, with 
a purple-faced London alderman opposite ; of the boa- 
constrictor drinking the last drop of his victim^s blood, 
and crushing his last bone ; of the sufferers of Greek 
tragedy, with its stern, unrelenting fate ; — and you 
were not sorry when the task was over, and his mauled 
and mangled foe released. 

For savage sarcasm Disraeli stands unrivalled. His 
self-possession — his intellectual versatility — his clear 
and cold voice — his plucky appearance, all aid him in 
a wonderful manner. In his own peculiar line it is 
dangerous to attempt to cope with him. Roebuck on 
one occasion did so, and signally failed. Somehow or 
other, one does not speak of Disraeli as an orator, or 
as a philosopher — like Burke or Mackintosh — uttering 
sentences that will form the wisdom of after-ages ; or 
even as a rhetorician, as Macaulay and Shell. We do 
not read that he was eloquent, argumentative, pathetic, 
or patriotic. You speak of him as you would of Tom 
Sayers. His admirers tell you that he was " in good 
condition'^ — that he " showed fight^'' — that he was 
" plucky as usual" — that he " hit right and left" — 
that he was " up to the mark" — and there is a similar 
isolation and singularity in his parliamentary conduct. 
Though the leader of a party, he is not its slave ; and 
on occasions he fails even to do the proper thing. 



The Rt. Hon. Benjamin Disraeli. 17 

Thus at the close of the Crimean war, on the vote of 
the address on peace — an opportunity which only 
comes once in a generation — when, according to con- 
ventional rules, Disraeli should have made a grand 
oration, he was actually dumb, and jumped up imme- 
diately and left the House after Palmerston's two 
hours^ speech — as if he were one of the silent members 
who ingloriously sleep on back benches during the 
very hottest of a parliamentary debate. Historians 
tell us how Prince Rupert was more than a match for 
the old-fashioned commanders of the Commonwealth. 
From his lair at Kinsale — from his lair in the Scilly 
Isles — from his lair in Jersey, he would pounce upon 
his enemy, and was irresistible — till a new system was 
inaugurated, and Blake, a man of greater genius and 
daring, raised the red cross of the Commonwealth. 
Lord Derby has been called the Prince Rupert of 
debate, but the term is more applicable to Disraeli. 
When you expect him to speak, he has nothing to 
say ; when you do not expect him, he is on his legs ; 
when you think he will go on for another hour, he 
sits down as rapidly and unexpectedly as he gets up. 
He delights in surprises, and you cannot tell which is 
the studied effort and Avhich the impromptu retort. 
Herein especially is manifest his superiority over con- 
ventional speakers — a superiority especially apparent 
when he came to be the leader not merely of a party, 
but England^s Premier. 

In his own peculiar style of personal attack, 

c 



18 The Conservatives. 

Disraeli lias the field entirely — too entirely — to him- 
self, and no wonder is it that personality is his favou- 
rite weapon, and the one the best appreciated by the 
young lordlings behind him, who cheer infinitely 
better than speak. At the same time, it must be 
confessed that Toryism is always more ungentlemanly 
and personal than that sublime intellectual abortion, 
the pure old Whig. The only personal paper attempted 
in our day was the Press, and that soon gave up per- 
sonalities ; the Satirist was a Conservative paper ; so 
was the John Bull ; so was Blackwood, when it charged 
Hazlitt with having pimples on his face; so was the 
Anti-Jacobin, when it called Charles James Fox 
" The Catiline of modern times." . 

If we go back to the days of Swift, L^Estrange, 
and Mrs. Manley, we shall find the same personality 
characteristic of the High Church and Tory party. 
Dr. Arnold, somewhere in his letters, makes a similar 
remark. 

It is wonderful — the power of oratory. The 
speaker, whether from the platform or the pulpit, is 
the only worker who gets his reward at once. You 
may invent what shall enrich a nation, and die a 
beggar ; you may write, but your hair will be grey 
before the world is familiar with your name ; you may 
be a poet, and fame may not own your genius till the 
turf on your grave is green; but, possess the magic 
power with the living voice to reach the living heart 
of multitudes, and immediately you are a king 



TJie Bt. Hon. Benjamin Disraeli. 19 

amongst men. Not merely amongst a rude^ un- 
tutored peasantry, or inflammable youth, or a middle- 
class public particularly prone to clap-trap, or an 
Exeter Hall audience, rather feminine than select ; 
but amonv^st educated gentlemen and polished 
scholars, amongst men who have long mastered emo- 
tion, and to whom most oratory is as " sounding 
brass or as a tinkling cymbal/'' On a grand field 
night you feel this as you see Disraeli, perfectly 
aware that victory is beyond his grasp, standing on 
the floor of the House, his eyes flashing defiance, his 
lip cm-led with sarcasm, his arm pointed to the object 
of attack, and his voice alternately expressing indigna-. 
tion and contempt. As I have ah'eady hinted, as an 
orator Disraeli stands by himself It is not English 
— that elaborately-dressed form; that pale Hebrew 
face, shaded with curling hair, once luxuriant and 
dark ; that style, so melo-dramatic, yet so efiective ; 
that power of indi\aduality which makes you hate the 
object of his hate ; that passion which you scarce 
know whether to call malignant or sublime. When 
he rises, it is needless for the Speaker to announce his 
name. A glance at the orator, with his glistening 
vest, tells you that the great advocate of the puic 
Semitic race is on his legs. You have seen that face 
in Punch. You have imagined Coningsby just as 
attentively listened to, or Vivian (xrey looking just as 
cool. It is not every man that can play a losing 
game. To speak from the Treasury benches with u 

c i 



30 The Conservatives. 

whipper-in to make a House and secure you a cordial 
welcome, to feel that a triumphant speech will be 
succeeded by a triumphant vote, are privileges granted 
but to few — to Disraeli seldom indeed. So far as 
the Opposition are concerned, the debate generally 
languishes till the Speaker announces the name of the 
member for Buckinghamshire. Immediately you lean 
forward. In his face there is a dazzling, saucy look 
which at once excites your interest. You see that 
if not a great man, he is an intensely clever one, 
and though on reflection you see more display than 
reality in his performance, and are not sure that he 
is in earnest, or that he means what he says, or that 
he is sustained and prompted by any gi'cat principle, 
you feel that as an orator he has few rivals. When 
he soars, as he occasionally does, you tremble lest he 
should break down, but Disraeli never attempts more 
than he can achieve, and when nearest to bathos he 
saves himself by a happy flight. But even in his 
highest efibrts he aims at a doggedly cool and 
unconcerned appearance, and will stop to suck an 
orange, or actually, as he did in his great Budget 
speech, to cut his nails. It is true there are times 
when he looks more emotional. On that memorable 
December morning when he was ousted from his 
chancellorship, when his party were ingloriously driven 
from the Eden in which they had hoped long 

" To live and lie reclined 
On tlie Hlls like gods together, careless of mankind," — 



The Bf. Hon. Benjamin Disraeli. 21 

back into the bleak and desert world, the ex-Chau- 
cellor of the Exchequer came out of the House at 
half-past five a.m., gay and fresh as if the majority 
had been with him, not against him. There was an 
unwonted buoyancy in his walk and sparkle in his 
eye ; but the excitement of the contest was hardly 
over — the swell of the storm was there still — still rang 
in his ears the thunders of applause, audible in the 
lobby, which greeted his daring retorts and audacious 
personalities. Even when, as occasionally, he leads his 
party into a cul de sac, and listens to their murmurs 
and hears their threats, you cannot perceive any 
feeling of disappointment or regret on his impassive 
face. No stone could display more indifference. 

But Disraeli, I am told, has no principles. In the 
House of Commons men deal not with principles, but 
with facts. The best statesman in modern times is 
he who is least hampered by principles, and is free to 
follow the leading of public opinion, and yet it is not 
difficult to perceive a certain amount of consistency in 
Mr. Disraeli^s political opinions, whether you study 
his novels or his speeches. It may be a grave fault — 
granting, for the sake of argument, that the charge be 
true — but, if other statesmen are equally remiss, why is 
Disraeli alone to be singled out for censure ? Was Lord 
Palmerston so consistent that the British public are to 
fire with indignation at the licentiousness of Disraeli's 
political career ? Lord John RusselFs earlier speeches 
were against reform. The great Whig idol entered the 



22 Tlie Conservatives. 

House of Commons under Tory auspices. We liave 
built up statues in every corner of the land to Sir 
Robert Peel, yet what principle did that eminent 
statesman start with which he did not abdicate in the 
course of his eventful parliamentary existence ? Ge- 
nius has a creed of its own — forms of expression of its 
own^ and if it condescends to party Shibboleths, it 
gives them a wider bearing. If this be true every- 
where, especially is this true in practical politics, 
where, at all times, 

" Black's not so veiy black, nor white so very white ;" 

and where, in these times, the differences between the 
occupants of the Treasury benches and those of the 
Opposition are so few. There is a wide interval 
between a Hobbes and a Milton — between a Filmer 
and a Locke — between a Blaclistone and a Eentham 
— between the stump orator of the Temple Forum or 
the Codgers' Hall declaiming on the rights of man, 
and the leader of the House of Commons dealing with 
a thousand discordant rights, the growth of the con- 
flicting passions, and principles, and interests, and 
prejudices of a thousand years ; but between the 
Whig and Tory aristocracy — between, for instance. 
Lord Derby and Lord Palmerston — the line of sepa- 
ration was so obscure that the wonder was that a respec- 
table line could be held up to the public at all. Mr. 
Stafford jobbed at the Admiralty, but were Mr. 
Gladstone's nominees immaculate? Disraeli believes 



TJte Rt. Hon. Benjamin Disraeli. 23 

lie and liis party are as honest as tlieir opponents. 
Evidently the English squirearchy are of a similar 
opinion. The Whig and Peelite writers are astonished, and 
one of the dullest of them, in a feeble octavo con- 
taining 700 pages (" Disraeli ; a biography^^), enters 
his protest, and begs to " recall our attention to the 
principles of English morality, which have done even 
more than the industrious energy and practical genius 
of the people in making England what she is. Eng- 
land has been a standing witness against political 
atheism.^' The "V^Tiig aristocracy, who have always been 
narrow in their principles and narrow in their applica- 
tion of them, who snubbed Burke, ignored Sheridan, only 
accepted Mackintosh when he gave up the doctrines of 
the VindicuB Galliae, and would have made Canning 
whipper-in — who deluded the nation with a Reform 
Bill which was to have prolonged their political 
existence in secula seculonim, and did not even carry 
Free Trade — are quite as open to the charge of 
political atheism as Mr. Disraeli. Position has 
a great deal to do with politics. The Whigs found 
out this when they carried the celebrated Appropria- 
tion Clause. If Lord Palmerston had been in office 
he would never have defeated Lord John Russell 
and caused the latter to resign on the question of 
general or local militia. Out of office no man has 
declaimed so energetically against the Income Tax as 
Mr. Gladstone. In office Mr. Horsmau was a Whig. 
With the sweets of office dangling before them, as we 



34 The Conservatives. 

■get jackasses to move on by flourisMng a bit 
of hay, what lofty patriots do middle-aged barristers 
become. On one side of the Speaker^s chair 
there are men especially bound to find fault with 
what is professed on the other. Of course they 
do this unsparingly and con amove, because they 
know that if the tables were turned their own acts 
would be subjected to a similar unsparing criticism. 
The country reaps the benefit of this, for the progress 
thus consummated is slow — slow as public opinion. 
Amongst us 

" Freedom broadens slowly down 
From precedent to precedent ;" 

but to argue that on one side of the Speaker's chair 
are the sheep, and on the other the goats — on one side 
the knaves, and on the other the honest men — that, 
for instance, a barrister speaking on the Whig side is 
a patriot of the first water, and a barrister speaking 
on the Opposition benches a dishonest partisan — to 
believe, for instance, that a manufacturer with his 
hands red with the blood of factory children (see the 
evidence submitted to the House when Mr. Crook 
gained his victory) is an enlightened philanthropist, 
and that a country gentleman, with his horror of 
democracy and change, is a selfish ignoramus, betrays 
a verdancy rare in well-informed circles. It is not 
because Mr. Disraeli sits on the side of the House that 
is unpopular, and must be unpopular, that he is to be 
censured. In office he was civil and eminently disin- 



Lord Stanley. 25 

terestcd, and that is more than can be said of every 
leader. Partisan hacks may cast no stone at hira. 
A more august tribunal there may be even than that of 
the House of Commons. For a man not born to rank 
to be on an equality with men of rank, nay more^ to 
be their leader^ is a triumph^ but there are grander 
triumphs still ; if Mr. Disraeli has missed them, there 
are few that have found them, and those few rarely 
have a chance of catching Mr. Speaker's eye. 

lord stanley. 

(King's Ltxx — Stanley, 1256 ; Bourke, 1119 ; 
Sm T. F. Buxton, L., 1015.) 

Gibbon tells us, '^ of the various forms of govern- 
ment which have prevailed in the world, an hereditary 
monarchy seems to present the fairest scope for ridi- 
cule. Is it possible to relate, without an indignant 
smile, that on the father^s decease the property of a 
nation, like that of a drove of oxen, descends to his 
infant son, as yet unknown to mankind and himself ?" 
The language of Gibbon is not altogether inapplicable 
to hereditary statesmanship. Why should the tenth 
transmitter of a foolish face be a ruler over men whose 
natures he cannot understand, and Avith Avhose wants it 
is impossible for him to sympathize ? Surely the son 
of a lord is born no wiser, abler, stronger-minded than 
his fellows. Is he not very often born considerably 
less so, and, at any rate, does he not labour under one 



20 Tlie Conservatives. 

great damning disadvantage^ that he lias liad no whole- 
some struggle from his youth upwards ; that his impe- 
tuous will has never been disciplined by wise control ; 
that the very conditions — I mean the struggle with 
hard necessity and adverse circumstances^ without 
which most men would pass their days in epicurean 
ease — by means of which it is given to a man to be- 
come great, are denied him from his birth. An 
Englishman crawls in the dust before a lord. When 
can he hear the stern and unwelcome voice of truth ? 
How can he understand the condition-of-England 
question ? Poverty is almost romantic in the eyes of 
the rich. A great duke lives in Brighton because he 
cannot afford to live in one of his own palatial resi- 
dences. The poor man is not thus encumbered, — he 
has no need to trouble himself with settlements and 
lawyers ; nor is he required to subscribe to the county 
charities — to preside at anniversary dinners — to dance 
attendance at court,--nor has he his every movement 
recorded in the morning papers. See Strephon on a 
bank reclining, in a costume very Arcadian, and very 
much like what we see at the Adelphi on the occasion 
of a rustic fete. Hear him sing, 

" At ease reclined, in rustic state,' 
How vain the ardour of tlie crowd. 
How low,, how little are the proud, 
How indigent the gi'eat !" 

Who would not be Strephon rather than your much- 
to-be-pitied lord ! Indeed so over- weighted is the 



Lord Stanley. 27 

latter that lie generally performs even his political 
duties by proxy. But we are entering on a question 
respecting which there may be different opinions. "We 
imagine all will admit that Lord Edward Henry 
Stanley, eldest son of the Earl of Derby, born at 
Knowsley, Lancashire, 1826, is the ablest argument 
we have in favour of hereditary statesmanship. Primd 
facie, a man who has an impediment in his speech, so 
that his utterance is unpleasant and imperfect, stands 
a poor chance of being elected into an assembly, one 
great qualification for which is more or less of ora- 
torical power. To read a speech is yet more an out- 
rage on our English ideas ; yet Lord Stanley did this 
not very long since. To be a refined thinker — to go 
down to the core and kernel of things — unfits a man 
for the use of the usual party expressions, which un- 
less you use you may vainly long for a parliamentary 
position. John Stuart Mill, our greatest writer on 
political and social science, has not a seat in the House 
of Commons ; our profoundest Greek historian, Mr. 
Grote, we know declined to stand for Westminster, on 
account of the impossibility of coming to a good 
understanding with its noisy and vehement democrats. 
Lord Stanley's statesmanship is of a similar high 
order. Yet, when Lord George Bentinck died, he was 
elected his successor as M.P. for Walpole's favourite 
borough of King's Lynn. How is it that Lord Stanley 
has thus made a good start in public life ? The 
answer is soon given — he is the son of his father, and 



28 The Conservatives. 

that father one of England^s leading landlords ; that 
father, if not one of the most eminent politicians of 
the age, at any rate is one of the most eloquent 
speakers in any legislative assembly in the world. 

In his '^ Memoirs of the Reign of King George the 
Second/' old Horace Walpole, then Earl of Orford, 
apologizing for the unfavourable light in which he 
places many of his former characters, says : — "If, after 
all, many of the characters are bad, let it be remem- 
bered that the scenes I describe passed in the highest 
life, the soil the vices like/' This is a little severe, 
and let us hope not quite so true in the days of Queen 
Victoria as King George. But when a young noble- 
man scorns delights and lives laborious days, it must 
be admitted on all sides he deserves well of his country. 
From his youth upward Lord Stanley has done this. 
He was a pupil of Dr. Arnold of Rugby ; and we all 
know how, when Dr. Arnold's pupils came up to Ox- 
ford, there was found to be in them a thoughtfulness, a 
conscientiousness, a sense of duty, rare in men so young, 
and by means of which they were favourably contrasted 
with the alumni of ether public schools. This was a 
confession, as we all know, fairly and honourably made 
by Arnold's opponents. In Lord Stanley's case this 
result is very manifest ; and no doubt it was this that 
led him — while the unfledged lordlings of his own rank 
and standing were wearing white waistcoats, and writ- 
ing very indifferent poetry, and astonishing heaven and 
earth by Young England affectation — to leave home. 



Lord Stanley. 29 

and by means of foreign travel to enlarge his "vdews 
and liberalize his ideas. As soon as he Avas of age, 
Lord Stanley spent some time in Canada and America. 
His next step was to the West Indies, to study the re- 
sults of negro emancipation, and the condition of the 
sugar plantations. He next paid a visit to the East, 
and was still in India when nominated, in March, 1852, 
Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in the 
Derby ^Ministry. These visits have borne fruit. Lord 
Stanley learnt much ; got rid of many exploded ideas, 
became wiser, as all men should who stand face to 
face with the truth of things and the facts of life. As a 
social reformer Lord Stanley is widely known. Few 
men have done more with regard to the encouragement 
of mechanics' institutes, the establishment of public 
libraries, and the promotion of popular education. 
When, in 1858, he was made President of the Indian 
Board, by his introduction of the competitive system 
into the service he gave an impulse to education among 
the middle classes which it is almost impossible to 
over-estimate. His philanthropy is thus of the highest 
and most practical character — of that character which 
acknowledges that human affairs are conducted on ge- 
neral principles, that suffering and liuman degradation 
are, as a rule, the result of a violation of law, and that 
the remedy is to be found, not so much in Acts of Parlia- 
ment, or temporary expedients, as in the enlightenment, 
moral and intellectual, of the sufferers themselves. 
Many arc the nostrums of our day. In vain arc baths 



30 The Conservatives. 

and wash-houses^ in vain are flannel-waistcoats and 
thick bootS; in vain are good meals and a good atmo- 
sphere,, in vain are Saturday half-holidays and an 
abridgment of the hours of labour^ in vain are the 
wonderful mechanical improvements of our time^ if the 
people suffer from lack of knowledge^ and the night of 
ignorance lies heavily on the land. As a politician 
Lord Stanley is hard to define. Dod describes him as 
a Conservative^ but in favour of the admission of Jews 
to Parliament, of the Maynooth grant, and of the ex- 
emption of Dissenters from church-rates. "When his 
father has been in office, Lord Stanley has been one 
of his most valuable supporters in the Lower House. 
Yet when, in 1855, the death of Sir W. Molesworth 
created a vacancy in the Colonial-office, Lord Palmer- 
ston, sensible of Lord Stanley^s talents and popularity, 
offered him the seals of that department. More than 
once Lord Stanley was named as a probable holder of 
office under Earl E-ussell and Mr. Gladstone; and if, 
a few years since, he had come forward as a candidate 
for the city of London — and a numerously- signed re- 
quisition was got up to that effect — it is not clear but 
that he would have been selected by the City in pre- 
ference to one of the present M.P.''s. The fact that 
such a belief existed indicates Lord Stanley^s liberality. 
With another well-known Liberal of a stiU more ultra 
character. Lord Stanley is supposed to have held ami- 
cable relations. In the House of Commons smoking- 
room the interviews between Lord Stanley and John 



Lord Stanley. 31 

Bright are said to have been of a very frequent and 
coufidential natui'e. They both of them have this in 
common — that they belong to the higher order of 
statesmen, though their respective standpoints are 
wide as the poles asunder. They may yet sit side by 
side on the Treasury Benches. Lord Stanley must, 
sooner or later, cut the old country Quarter Sessions 
party that feasted so greatly at St. Jameses Hall the 
other day, imder the presidency of Lord John Man- 
ners. As it is, his temporary alliance with them has 
damaged him, for people find it difficult to make allow- 
ances for a man of trained judgment, and with an 
understanding well cultivated, doing anything so un- 
natural as leading the forlorn hope of a retrograde party 
in church and state, — and surely the Indians, native or 
otherwise, have reason to complain that because some 
poor Whigs wanted to get back into office. Lord Stan- 
ley was driven out, and his place supplied by a third- 
rate official like Sir Charles Wood, a man who is always 
— what Lord Stanley never is — common-place. This 
leads me to the great characteristic of Lord Stanley. 
He has less of mere partisanship and more of elevated 
principle, perhaps, than any other man in Parliament. 
He has thought out his own conclusions ; he has 
strength of mind sufficient to rely on them. He is 
superior to the prejudices of the hour. Never does 
he stoop to pander to the delusions of the mob ; he is 
the last man in the world to talk what the Americans 
call " Bunkum.''^ He has a system to fall back on, and 



32 The Conservatives. 

this is a great advantage in these days of incoherent 
action and chaotic legislation. 

Come into the House of Commons. Some grand dis- 
play of force is expected — some question touching the 
hearts and arousing the passions of men is being dis- 
cussed — some crisis is at hand. On the front bench of 
the Opposition^ seated between Mr. Disraeli and Sir 
John Pakington, is a younger parliamentary performer^ 
much more plainly dressed than the great exponent of 
the Asiatic mystery, and by no means so elaborately 
neat as the worthy member for Droitwich. His features 
are small, his complexion is light, his countenance 
pale, his figure stout, and the expression of his 
face slightly haughty ; but this is not discernible in the 
Strangers^ Gallery. You see, however, that he is an in- 
tensely earnest listener, that not a word of the debate 
escapes him, that he occasionally takes notes, and now 
and then speaks to his friends around him, as if in 
consultation. It may be that he rises to speak, and 
your curiosity is aroused. When you hear the Speaker 
announce Lord Stanley's name, you lean forward, for 
the House cheers, and the speaker is evidently a 
favourite. What ! you cannot hear a word, though 
every one is silent as a cat ? Ah ! now you will hear ; 
the voice is filling the place, and, by-and-by, will float 
up to you. Alas ! alas ! there is a sound, it is true, as 
of a man speaking : but it may be Greek, or Hebrew, 
or Chaldee that he is speaking, for aught you know to 
the contrary. Nature has not been so bountiful to the 



Lord Stanley. 33 

son as to the sire^ yet you will see that the House 
listens with interest, that the argument tells, and when 
you read the speech in the Times next day, you will 
think that the speech was one of the best of the night. 
It is a fine illustration of the triumph of mind over 
matter, and shows, as we have said, that statesmanship 
may exist, of the highest qualities, without the pos- 
sessor of them being an orator at all. Out of doors 
this would be a defect ; it would unfit a man to suc- 
ceed in making new truths popular. In the House of 
Commons, where declamation avails but little, it is a 
slight drawback, which is soon overlooked, when a man 
works so hard and so successfully, as patriot and 
statesman, as Lord Stanley does. 

Poor Brough, who died prematurely the other day, 
tells us : — 

" My Lord Tomnoddy's the son of an Earl, 
His hair is straight but his whiskers curl ; 
His lordship's forehead is far from wide, 
But there's plenty of room for the brains inside. 
He writes his name with indifferent ease, 
He's rather uncertain about the d's. 
But what does it matter, if three or one. 
To the Earl of Fitzdotterel's eldest son.^^" 

Lord Stanley does not belong to this class. He 
accepts his rank and station, and at the same time its 
responsibilities. He is as much aware of the duties 
as the rights of property, and he is willing to lend the 
prestige of his name to institutions not exactly ortho- 
dox in conservative eyes. As regards sii-c and son, the 

D 



34 TJie Conservatives. 

order of nature seems to have been completely reversed. 
The son has an old head on young shoulders — he has 
been ever wise^ and prudent^ and thoughtful beyond 
his years. The father, when a commoner in the Lower 
House, always managed to keep Ireland in hot water 
— to goad on the colonies almost to the verge of revolt ; 
and in the Upper House has been great in winning 
barren victories, and in leading his party into office 
merely to lead them ingloriously out again — after the 
commission of a few jobs such as those at Dover or 
Gal way. 

The present Lord Stanley is the reverse of all this — 
of course something is due to training. The Earl of 
Derby tells us he was born in the pre-scientific era. 
Lord Stanley has had an advantage in this respect — 
the politics of the present time are also calmer and less 
fraught with personal collision ; but I imagine natui'e 
has cast the son in a more philosophical mould than 
the eloquent and impulsive sire. We can have no 
fear on the score of our foreign relations so long as 
Lord Stanley holds his place as Foreign Secretary of 
State. 

SIR JOHN PAKINGTON. 

(Droitwich — Pakington, 781 ; Corbet, L., 602.) 
A TALE is told of an Eastern potentate, who, amongst 
the other lions of London, visited the House of Com- 
mons. The distinguished foreigner was delighted with 
everything he saw ; the occupants of the Treasury 



Sir John PaJcinoton. 35 



beuclieSj the Speaker, the Maee, the Serjeant-at Arms, 
the clerks at the table, the reporters iu the gallery, 
small and incommodious, and the ladies very properly 
in another gallery, smaller and more incommodious 
still ; all were so fortunate as to obtain his warm ap- 
proval. His attention was directed to gentlemen sit- 
ting opposite the Treasury benches. He asked who 
they were ; the reply was, that they were Her Ma- 
jesty's Opposition. The answer puzzled him greatly, 
and when he did understand it, when it was explained 
that those gentlemen sat there to oppose everything 
Her Majesty's government said and did — to find fault 
with it, whether it stood still or moved on, he scarce 
knew whether most to admire the audacity that could 
suggest, or the lenity that could pardon, such a course. 
" Her Majesty's Opposition, indeed !" exclaimed the 
astonished spectator. " By Allah ! in my country 
we should have off their heads in a week." Even iu 
civilized Europe an opposition exists only by perilling 
its liberty. It is only in England it is safe. In times 
of excitement the opposition is a safety valve — in 
times of weakness, a source of confusion — in times like 
the present, principally a means of doubling the par- 
liamentary session and reports. A clear, definite 
policy may receive a decided opposition, as it will 
insure a decided support. Free Trade, for instance, 
was a thing to which men might say Yes or No, as 
they could to Catholic Emancipation, the Reform 
Bill, or the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts, 



36 The Conservatives. 

or as they will say to measures whicli will be discussed 
when the people of this country awake from their 
sleep of political indiflference and unbelief. But it is 
difficult to oppose a government without convictions ; 
especially if the opposition comes from men in a similar 
category. In the main^ both parties are agreed. Both 
have accepted Free Trade. Either would regale a 
hustings' mob with the cant phrases of ^^ a glorious 
war/"* or '^ a safe and honourable peace. ^^ The fiery 
old thick-headed squires are gone, and the jolly 
old thick-headed opposition is gone with them. Sib- 
thorpe was the ultimus Romanorum. One could not see 
why Sir John Pakington sat on one side of the House 
and Sir Charles Wood on the other. One could under- 
stand Sir Harry Inglis_, or Sir Charles Wetherell, or 
a late Duke of Newcastle. They would not move the 
ancient landmarks. They honestly believed that it 
was essential to the welfare of this country that Old 
Sarum and Gatton should be represented in Parlia- 
ment, and that Manchester and Birmingham should 
not ; they thought, that the way to get the Irish 
Eoman Catholics to love them, was by insulting and 
persecuting the professors of that ancient faith — that, 
to keep men honest, they were to swear to what they 
did not believe, and that the country would go to the 
bad if the starving labourer was permitted to eat his 
untaxed bread. At the time of the Reform Bill agi- 
tation Sir Harry Inglis said that if that bill were 
carried, then in ten years' time there would be no 



Sir John P akin ff ton. 37 

State Church, no House of Lords — nay, more — that 
even Royalty would be swept away. Now, all this 
seems very absurd to us, but it was honestly believed 
then by some of the Opposition, who went so far as to 
take their money out of the English funds and invest 
it in American stock. The Opposition, then, if not 
very enlightened, was at any rate clear. Now that it 
has become wiser it is less of an Opposition. As an 
instance^ let us glance at Sir John Pakington''s politi- 
cal career. Sir John Somerset Pakington, born in 
1799, at Powick Court, Worcestershire, very much 
astonished the world by accepting, in 1852, the office 
of Secretary of State for the Colonies. Men had only 
conceived of him as a respectable member of the 
country party and chairman of quarter sessions. No- 
minally a Conservative, necessity was laid upon him, 
and he was compelled to advance with the times. 
The party with which he acted has always opposed 
Free Trade, the Maynooth Grant, and the admission 
of Jews to Parliament ; but in office — first as Colonial 
Secretary, and then as Fu'st Lord of the Admiralty 
— Sir John has accepted Free Trade, walked out of 
the House without voting on a Maynooth debate, and 
was an active party in admitting Baron Rothschild 
and Alderman Salomons to a scat in the House of 
Commons. We thus learn that Sir John, if a Conser- 
vative, is not an obstinate one ; not of that type of 
Conservatism which the ever-to-be-lamented Arnold 
deprecated as the most revolutionary clement in exis- 



38 TJie Conservatives. 

tence. From his attention to the subject of education 
— from his presence at the Social Science meetings — 
from his readiness to aid the philanthropic movements 
of the day — it is clear Sir John is a Liberal^ what- 
ever be the name of the party of whom he is one of 
the chiefs. Still more as a practical administrator are 
we under national obligations to Sir John Pakingtou. 
At the beginning of 1859^ or at the latter end of 1858;, 
the country became alarmed at the state of the national 
defences. Sir John^ who was then in office, turned 
his attention to the subject. Our navy was admitted 
to be woefully deficient ; we were badly oiF both as 
regards ships and men. Sir John made an attempt to 
build the one and procure the other. If Sir John 
Pakington fell into the usual error of exerting his in- 
fluence as First Lord of the Admiralty in political 
matters ; if he quarrelled with Captain Carnegie, be- 
cause the latter would not fight for the Conservatives 
at Dover, he did but as other First Lords of the Ad- 
miralty have done before. No doubt there is monstrous 
abuse in the Admiralty. By means of its influence 
and expenditure the dockyards are little better than 
government boroughs. No doubt that in these places 
millions and millions of the people's money are wasted; 
Lord Clarence Paget has established this fact. A great 
statesman — a man of the first order — would have swept 
out this Augean stable. Sir John Pakington has failed 
to do so, and hence takes his place amongst statesmen 
of the second rank. 



Si)' John Paldngton. 39 

We hear much of the countiy party ; Tennyson lias 
painted the class. He describes a country squire as — 

" A great broad-shouldered genial Engliskman ; 
A lord of fat prize oxen and of slieep ; 
A raiser of Imge melons and of jiiue ; 
A patron of some thirty charities ; 
A pamphleteer on guano and on grain ; 
A quarter sessions' chairman — abler none ; 
Fair-haired, and redder than a windy morn." 

*■' Jolly companions are they every one/'' but they 
are not orators ; and while they will vote, and spend 
money, and fight at elections for their party, they have 
no idea of being penned up all night in the House of 
Commons, breathing bad air, and listening to bad 
speeches. Writing in 1828, of a government formed 
on the basis of resistance to Roman Catholic claims, 
the late Sir Robert Peel wrote — " What must have 
been the inevitable fate of a government composed of 
Goulburn, Sir John Pechell, Wetherell, and myself? 
Supported by very warm friends no doubt ; but those 
warm friends being prosperous country gentlemen, 
fox-hunters, &c. — most excellent men — who will attend 
one night, but who will not leave their favourite 
pursuits to sit up till two or three o'clock, fighting 
questions of detail — on which, however, a government 
must have a majority — Ave could not have stood credit- 
ably a fortnight.'' The description is still true, and 
hence it is that Sir John Pakington is made so much 
of. A real country gentleman so patriotic is a rarity ; 
a country gentleman able to speak liiiglish as fluently 



40 Tlie Conservatives. 

and correctly as any lawyer in the House is a still 
greater rarity. 

In the middle of the Treasury bench you will see 
a gentleman seated^ of the middle size^ with a pale 
face^ and rather a hooked nose. In his dress and 
general bearings you gather indications of correctness 
and finish, rather than of greatness or genius. On one 
side of him is Mr. Disraeli ; on the other, it may be, 
is Sir Stafford Northcote. What a contrast to each 
does Sir John Pakington present ! Still, compared 
with the men with whom he is often matched, he rises 
vastly in your estimation. Nor is he so dreadfully 
dreary as — well, we*ll give no more names. Sir John 
is a respectable speaker, and all respectable speakers 
are alike. He does not use the thunderbolts of Jove. 
He does not " shake the arsenal and fulmine over 
Greece.''^ He does not even attempt — like Burke — 
to clothe Conservatism in a philosophic form — much 
less has he the wit and classic grace of Canning ; but 
then he has ever a good word for the clergy — wears 
always unexceptionable linen, always sports a good 
hat, has his thin gray hair well brushed, and delights 
in faultless boots. I should think he always pays his 
tradespeople, attends punctually at the parish church, 
and, I should imagine, is a decorous husband, a pat- 
tern father of a family, and is regular in having the 
servants in to family prayers. 

There will be no collection of his speeches after his 
decease. The student will not resort to them as modpls. 



Si?' John Fahington. 41 

either on account of their powerful logic or brilliant 
declamation. They will go the way of most speeches, 
and sleep in Hansard for ever ; but Sir John is a use- 
ful man nevertheless. There are many lawyers who 
would make better speeches; but then they are not 
country gentlemen ; and even if, as they do occasion- 
ally — like Mr. Napier — shed tears, the common sense 
of the House rejects the idea of sincerity where lawyers 
are concerned ; but Sir John Pakington is a country 
gentleman with a large estate, and ready at a 
moment^s notice to serve at the Admiralty or the 
War OfiBce, or anywhere, and his party thankfully use 
his services. He does not convince them ; they do 
not want to be convinced — they are convinced already. 
He does not convince the Liberals ; their minds are 
made up to vote against Sir John before he opens his 
mouth : but he gives his party a decent excuse for 
voting. It would scarce do to march into the lobby 
without a discussion ; to give silent votes would be a 
confession of intellectual weakness for which the 
country party are not yet prepared ; but Sir John can 
speak on any question for any length of time, and 
when, towards the end of a debate, he rises and repeats 
the objections which have entered his head, his friends 
feel that they have appeared to have discussed the 
measure long enough, and tliat it is time the division 
takes place ; and the strangers in the gallery feel that 
there are two sides to every question, and that they 
are not the worse for hearing them. 



42 The Conservatives. 

THE RIGHT HON. SPENCER HORATIO WALPOLE. 

(Cambridge University — uiiopposed.) 

It is said tliat wlien the great statesman^ Sir Robert 
Walpole, was made a peer_, and met his old political 
opponent^ who had also been rewarded with a peerage 
in the Upper House,, he exclaimed^ " Here we are, my 
lord, the two most insignificant people in Europe/^ 
His lordship meant to imply that they, no longer 
leaders of parties in the Commons — reduced from the 
position which they had won by oratorical talent 
and indomitable perseverance — ^removed to an arena 
where there were but few laurels to be won, might be 
said, like veterans covered with renown, to have laid 
down their arms and retired from the field. In 
another sense, also, his lordship's language was true. 
From that time, but with one illustrious exception, 
the part the Walpoles have played on the political 
stage may be truly characterized as '^ insignifi- 
cant.'' 

The illustrious exception is the gentleman whose 
name we have placed at the head of this sketch, and 
of whose career we now give the outline. Mr. Wal- 
pole was born in 1809 — was educated at Eton, and 
Trinity College, Cambridge, where he took his B.A. 
degree in 1828, and obtained two prizes, namely, the 
first English declamation prize, and also one for the 
best essay on the character of William III. In 1831 
he was called to the bar by the Society of Lincoln's 



The Bf. Hon. Sjjencer Horatio Waljwie. 43 

lull, of which he is now a bencher, and speedily oi)- 
tained a large practice as a Chancery barrister. A 
successful lawyer is rarely long before he gets into 
Parliament. Mr. Walpole became a Queen's Counsel 
in 1816, and at the same time had the honoui' of be- 
coming M.P. for Midhurst. 

The year 1846 was a memorable time in our 
Parliamentary annals. Sir Robert Peel and the Anti- 
Corn Law League, together, were to destroy, in that 
year, the system of Protection which the country 
gentlemen believed to be essential to England^s wel- 
fare. The former had just been appointed, for the 
third time, minister of England, and apparently was 
stronger than ever. All idea of opposition of a serious 
character was ridiculed. A witty diplomatist commu- 
nicated to an illustrious personage the opinion of a 
member of the Government, that it would be only " a 
fat cattle opposition, and that the Protectionists would 
be unable to keep up the debates for two nights. '' Li 
reality it was otherwise. Lord George Bentinck be- 
came the leader of the Protectionists, Mr. Disraeli 
became their orator, and Mr. Walpole lent to the new 
party, in a short while, his pleasant presence and his 
ready tongue. Lord George Bentinck^'s leadership 
was of short duration. In 1848 he died suddenly, 
but his followers remained faithful to his principles, 
and in 1849 Mr. Walpole gained quite a Parliamentary 
reputation by his speech against the repeal of the 
Navigation Laws. His position thus won, Mr. Wal- 



44 Tlie Conservatives. 

pole took his place as one of the chiefs of parties. 
In 1851, when all Protestant England was aroused by 
the audacious aggression of the Church of Rome, he 
was one of the principal orators on the Ecclesiastical 
Titles Bill;, and when Lord Derby came into office, the 
Home Department was given to Mr. Walpole, who, 
to discharge the duties of that dignified position, re- 
linquished — though by no means wealthy — a very lu- 
crative practice at the bar. As Secretary of State 
for the Home Department, he carried through Parlia- 
ment a measure for embodying the militia. When 
the Derby administration went out, Mr. Walpole fol- 
lowed his colleagues into the cold shade of Opposition, 
and took a warm part in the discussions on University 
Reform, on more than one occasion carrying amend- 
ments against the Government. Mr. Walpole, after 
leaving office, became Chairman for a time of the 
Great Western Railway. 

In 1856 he was elected to succeed Mr. Goulburn, 
as representative for the University of Cambridge. In 
1858, there was another change in the position of 
parties. Lord Palmerston had been beaten on the 
Foreign Conspiracy Bill, and had given up office. 
Lord Derby had been sent for to take his place. 
Again Mr. Walpole was Home Secretary, which office 
he relinquished when the Conservative Reform BiU 
was introduced, as he did not, and could not, approve 
of all the details of the measure. This was the second 
sacrifice Mr. Walpole had made in order to serve 



The Rt. lion. S_pencer Horatio Waljjole. 45 

liis country. In the House great credit was given 
to him for his honesty in this last matter^ as it was 
well known that, had he cluag to office a little while 
longer, he would have been entitled to the pension of 
£.2000 a year provided for such members of the 
Cabinet as are entitled to it by three years' services, 
and whose circumstances require it. Once more there 
was a turn in the wheel, and Mr. Walpole and his 
friends returned in 1866 to power. He resumed his 
position at the Home Office — which office he resigned 
when harassed by the Hyde Park affair^ in which he 
appears to have acted with the full advice and co- 
operation of his colleagues. 

As an Ecclesiastical Commissioner, INIr. Walpole 
was and is a representative of the Church party — 
the party with "which he is connected in many ways. 
As a layman, on public occasions, he is ever ready to 
appear as its champion. In the Church Extension 
Scheme, for instance, of the Bishop of London, he 
took the warmest interest. If possible, Mr. Walpole 
would make the Establishment the Church of the 
nation. He would do this by reforming its 
abuses — by stimulating its energies — by giving to it 
increased efficacy and power. At Ealing, where he 
chiefly resides, he is a constant attendant at the parish 
church, the rector of which is considered to be by all 
a useful and earnest man, a true Churchman — but no 
ritualist, or hankcrer after the pagan pomps of 
Rome. 



46 The Conservauves. 

In 1835 Mr. Walpole married the daughter of 
Spencer Perceval, whose assassination by Bellingham 
in the lobby of the House of Commons caused such a 
shock all over the country in 1812, and over whose 
dead body, Wilberforce aflPectingly tells us how his 
bereaved wife grew very moderate and resigned, and, 
with her children, prayed for them, and the murderer^s 
forgiveness. By his marriage Mr. Walpole is the 
father of a large family, chiefly daughters. In private 
he is simple, unostentatious, and leads the life of a 
well-bred, a scholarly Christian English gentle- 
man. 

Of his personal appearance and manner of speaking, 
it is needless to say much. As a young man, he 
must have been very good-looking, with his light, 
fresh complexion, well- chiselled features, and clear 
blue eyes. Now he inclines a little to stoutness, and 
his hair is thin and partly grey. In dress he chiefly 
afibcts black, and might be taken for a country vicar 
of good family. His manner in Parliament was 
eminently conciliatory ; and we should imagine no 
man has made, in the course of a political career ex- 
tending over stormy times, fewer enemies. His lan- 
guage is very musical and harmonious. When neces- 
sary, Mr. Walpole can make a good speech. As a 
scholar, a gentleman, and a lawyer, he has few, if any, 
equals on his own side of the House. In political 
consistency, and in the patient discharge of duty, he 
is surpassed by none. For the rough work of the 



The Rf. Hon. Spencer Horatio Wcdjjole. 17 

Home Office, it may be that he was too refined and 
feeling. For such a place a harder nature than his 
may be requisite. Be that as it may, no man in the 
House is held at this time in higher honour than 
Mr. Walpole. 




CHAPTER III. 



OFFICIAL LIBEKALS. 




THE RT. HON. W. E. GLADSTONE. 

(G-RSENWiCH — Gladstone, 6351 ; Salomons, 6645 ; 
Mahon, C, 4342; Parker, 0., 4661.) 

ANY, many years ago, England's foremost 
statesman — distrusted by the multitude — 
feared by bis colleagues for his superiority — 
wearied of the strife and turmoil of party — on the eve 
of his departure as Governor-General of India, spent 
a short while at Seaforth House, bidding farewell to 
his Liverpool constituents. His custom was, we are 
told, to sit in his room, for hours, gazing on the wide 
expanse of ocean before him ; while below, a little lad 
played at his feet on the sand. The old Puritan tells 
us " Man proposes, God disposes.^-" Canning did not 
go to India — stopped at home to let all Europe 
understand that England had done with the holy 
alliance ; stopped at home, in a few short years to be 
buried in Westminster Abbey, while a nation wept — 
and the little lad grew, till his name became familiar 
in our mouths as a household word. Does it not 



The JRf. Hon. W. E. Gladstone. 49 

seem as if the 3"oung Gladstone^ while playiug ou the 
ijand with England's great statesman^ looking far on 
the wide sea before him^ had caught something 
of the genius — of the individuality — of the elo- 
quence — of the statesmanship,, whieh has given to 
the name of Canning an immortality which shall 
be fresh and fragrant when the grave in Westminster 
Abbey and the statue in Palace-yard shall have 
crumbled into dust? Let me not be understood to 
place Gladstone on an equal pedestal with Canning. 
The genius of Canning was of the highest order ; like 
that of all great men, it was universal in its range — 
it embraced the opposite poles of human thought and 
action. With the keen arrow of his wit he could 
deal as deadly blow as could others with the most 
vehement invective or laboured harangue. Gladstone 
is here wofully deficient. He neither jests, nor 
laughs, nor smiles, and evidently avoids, as unfair, 
little tricks and artifices which less scrupulous or more 
skilful orators would be but too happy to employ. It 
must also be remembered that oratorical display is 
less sought in the House of Commons than formerly. 
Year by year it is becoming more a business assembly 
— more and more a monster vestry meeting, and less 
and less a gathering of " patres conscripti." The 
oratorical era of the House of Commons reached its 
climax with Canning; the House now meets for the 
" despatch of business," and the men who. succeed 
now-a-days are men whose faculty of business is 



50 Official Liberals . 

something wonderful^ and Mr. Gladstone is no excep- 
tion to this rule. 

In the first reformed Parliament^ as if to show the 
fallacy of the melancholy forebodings of the anti-re- 
formers^ to the effect that for the future all talent 
would avoid St. Stephen^s^ Mr. Gladstone, then a very 
young man, of ample promise, from whom much was 
expected by his friends and collegiate contemporaries, 
became member for the Duke of Newcastle's close 
borough of Newark. His initiation into office, under 
Sir Robert Peel, took place soon after. When Sir 
Eobert was prematurely borne off the political arena 
by a lamentable accident, Mr. Gladstone became 
known to the world as a faithful Peelite, intent upon 
the vindication of his master's fame, and consistent in 
the application of his principles. It also became clear 
that he was somewhat more than the blind follower of 
a great leader. He had given proofs of unusual ten- 
derness of conscience, of marvellous subtilty of intellect, 
of rare independence of spirit — for he had resigned 
office, though on what ground was never exactly clear, 
and had written upon High Church claims on prin- 
ciples exclusively his own. No mention is made of 
Mr. Gladstone in the " Orators of the Age,'' a book 
published in 1847. In 1838 Mr. James Grant could 
write, and reviewers could praise, the book in which 
such want of political sagacity occurs as foUows : — " I 
have'no idea that he will ever acquire the reputation 
of a great statesman." It is not very long since the 



The Rt. Eon. W. U. Gladstone. 51 

above was written ; and now, on all sides, it is ad- 
mitted Mr. Gladstone is the ablest man in the House 
of Commons. It was he alone who overthrew Disraeli 
as the latter had just acquired the Chancellorship of 
the Exchequer and the leadership of the House of 
Commons, and he has been the mainstay of the 
Coalition Cabinet, and of every subsequent Liberal 
administration. If he does not acquire the repu- 
tation of a great statesman, it is clear no man 
in our age will. I fancy Mr. Disraeli has no love 
for the orator who triumphed over him with ease, 
aud with a proud consciousness of rectitude more 
potent even than eloquence itself. But his admirers 
have ever been men whose praise was worth winning 
and retaining. Thirty years ago Bunsen wrote — 
" Gladstone is the first man in England as to intel- 
lectual power, and he has heard higher tones than 
any one else in this island." 

Sydney Smith's description of Horner I have al- 
ways considered peculiarly appropriate to Gladstone. 
" There was something very remarkable in his counte- 
nance. The commandments were Avritten in his face, 
and I have often told him there was not a crime he 
might not commit with impunity, as no judge nor jury 
who saw him would give the smallest degree of credit 
to any evidence against him. There was in his look a 
calm, settled love of all that was honourable and good 
— an air of wisdom and sweetness. You saw at once 
that he was a great man, whom Nature had intended 

E 2 



5.2 Official Liberals. 

for a leader of tuman beings. You ranged yourself 
willingly under his banner^ and submitted to bis 
sway/^ I copy tbe passage^, as very applicable to tbe 
subject of tbis article. Judge for yourself. Come 
witb me into tbe Strangers^ Gallery of tbe House of 
Commons. It is early yet ; tbe bour appointed for 
tbe transaction of private business is not over; but 
already down at tbe Treasury Bencb tbere is tbe 
great Liberal leader^ witb papers all around^ to tbe 
study of wbicb be devotes apparently considerable 
attention. All of a sudden you see bim drop bis 
papers and look earnestly at some speaker wbo has risen 
to ask bim some unimportant question. Mr. Gladstone 
rises_, takes off bis bat^ and advances to tbe table. Witb 
bis plain dress and bis fluent delivery you migbt almost 
take bim for a clergyman. He repeats tbe question, 
answers it in language of remarkable elegance,, and sits 
down witbout making the slightest effort at display. 
Look at him now, with full dark eyes, clear intellectual 
bead, and a body well proportioned, and of an average 
size. Nowhere can you see a face more indicative of 
goodness, and honesty, and power. Of tbe latter, if you 
wait, you will soon cease to doubt. A motion is before 
tbe House. Mr. Gladstone rises to defend tbe govern- 
ment ; and however forcible may have been the attack, 
equally forcible is tbe defence. He is a master of de- 
bate, and you are not sorry when he rises to reply. His 
acuteness never fails bim. His voice is always good, 
bis delivery always f^nimated, and his language never 



Ue Et. Hon. IF. E. Gladstone. 53 

at fault. If you were to priut his speech from the re- 
porters' short-hand uotes^ without any revision what- 
ever^ it would be a perfeet piece of composition. Ou 
one occasion, the celebrated Dick Martin complained 
that the reporters had not done him justice. It was 
urged that they had but given the hou. gentleman's 
exact words. " True/' he said, " but did I spake them 
in italics ?" Mr. Gladstone never need fear the re- 
porters giving his exact words, even with the accom- 
panying italics. Better than any man in the House 
he can stand the test of ridicule. Indeed, with his 
serious demeanour he abashes levity, and puts aside all 
trifling. He would act the part of one of the Roman 
senators to perfection. If he cannot win a victory by 
fair means, he will not by foul. When the House, as 
it is too apt to do, forgets itself — when it abounds 
with sarcasm and personalities, Mr. Gladstone sits 
silent and sorrowful. But I have not yet given you 
an idea of his power. The party debate over, the 
House goes into committee. It is late ; the House is 
hot j members are weary and away ; but one man is 
at his post, and that man is Mr. Gladstone. Not a 
criticism is uttered but he makes a note of it. With 
his knees crossed so as to serve him for a table, with 
a pencil in his hand, Avith his head bent forward in the 
direction of the Speaker, there he sits hour after hour, 
save when he rises to defend, or enforce, or explain 
the measure of which he has the charge. I believe 
he may make a dozen speeches in the course of a single 



54 Official Liherals 



. night on different subjects, and so silvery is liis voice, 
so ready his language,, so acute, and searching, and 
comprehensive his criticism, that the more you hear 
of him the more you are impressed with admiration. 
In his intellect, strength and flexibility are combined, 
and thus it is he is so full and elastic and effective 
when on his legs. The more difficult the theme, the 
more animated the debate, the more solemn the crisis, 
the more does he shine. Some of his more serious 
efforts are worthy of the best days of parliamentary- 
history. When some national unrighteousness has been 
done, when some folly of the hour has to be pointed 
out and deplored, you know then that Gladstone, with 
" dauntless words and high,^"* will speak as did he 

" Wlio shook the sere leaves from the wood 
As if a storm pass'd by." 

Perhaps his greatest triumphs were when Palmerston 
was premier. No one but Mr. Gladstone could have 
reconciled the House of Commons not merely to the con- 
tinuance, but to the increasing the Income Tax, at the 
very time the public had been led to expect its abolition 
altogether. Mr. Gladstone^'s sore-throat, which necessi- 
tated delay, was a European difficulty. Happily, nature 
and Dr. Ferguson proved victorious, and the Palmerston 
cabinet was saved. The Chancellor's speech of four 
hours was a master- piece of tact and ingenuity; was 
persuasive and eloquent and overpowering ; the reply 
to Mr. Disraeli was complete, and for once in his life 
Mr. Gladstone was almost savage. " I could not 



Tlie Bt. Hon. W. E. Gladstone. 55 

stand that speecli of Gladstone's/' said a Conservative 
M.P. to a friend ; " I was compelled to vote for him/' 
In the debate on Mr. Du Cane's amendment, as if 
conscious of his coming majority of 116, Mr. Glad- 
stone assumed a haughty and dashing bearing, and dis- 
played a disposition to punish his adversaries which 
he seldom evinces. His budget took the world by 
surprise ; it was, as an M.P, described it, an ambitious 
budget. The Opposition made but a feeble fight; Mr. 
Disraeli was but faintly supported by his own party. 
For a wonder, after he had spoken about a quarter of 
an hour, members flocked into the lobby, and chatted 
away with their hands in their pockets, as if Mr. 
Spooner were delivering an oi'ation against Maynooth, 
or as if a Marylebone M.P. were ingloriously riding 
some dull hobby to death. Sir John Pakington made 
a blunder still worse. His advice to the aggrieved 
hop-growers to rally with the publicans and sinners — 
with all the interests damaged, or expecting to be 
damaged, by the budget, rendered their cause hopeless. 
AVhen the question lay, as the hon. baronet seemed 
to imply, between the public good on one side and 
particular interests on the other, there could be no 
doubt as to the result. Theoretically, the House of 
Commons may be an imperfect body, but more or less 
it represents public opinion, and no one appeals to its 
public spirit in vain. 

Mr. Gladstone's position is by no means a pleasant 
one. Mr. Fox said he would rather got his bread 



56 Official Liberals. 

any way than by being Chancellor of the Exchequer. 
Depend upon it Mr. Gladstone would say the same. 
As a man of peace^ he has been compelled to find the 
money for the Chinese war — a war against which he 
has more than once raised an indignant protest ; he 
has had to swallow his objections to an income tax, 
and increase it ; he has had to put up with a '' gigantic 
innavation,'* and pocket the one-and-a-half millions of 
money the Lords persisted in pressing on him by 
refusing to repeal the paper duty. He has had, 
besides, to come to Parliament for money for fortifica- 
tions. No wonder he is indignant, — no wonder he 
charges the House of Commons and the people of his 
country with extravagance, — ^no wonder he exclaimed 
as he did in one of his speeches towards the end of 
the late session : — " Vacillation, uncertainty, costliness, 
extravagance, meanness, and all the conflicting ^dces 
that could be enumerated, are united in our present 
system. There is a total want of authority to direct 
and guide. When anything is to be done we have to 
go from department to department, from the Executive 
to the House of Commons, from the House of Commons 
to a Committee, from a Committee to a Commission, 
and from a Commission back to a Committee, so that 
years pass away, the public is disappointed, and 
the money of the country is wasted. I believe such 
are the evils of the system that nothing short of re- 
volutionary reform will ever be sufficient to rectify 
it.^^ 

Mr. Gladstone, it must be admitted, has his faults. 



The Bt. Hon. IF. E. Gladstone. 57 

In the first place he has the logical faculty in excess^ 
aud will keep on splitting hairs till you are exhausted ; 
and secondly, when out of office, and freed from its 
responsibilities, he will persist in putting before the 
House the unpopular side of the question. Again, he 
is of an enthusiastic character, and will paint a picture 
cuuleur de rose when the facts have a decided tendency 
the other way. He is very often the slave of an idea ; 
he contemplates it till he loses all perception of any- 
thing else. His speech on the Repeal of the Paper 
Duty, in which Mr. Gladstone showed to what numerous 
uses paper might be applied, was a remarkable illustra- 
tion of this. Whatever may be the subject of debate, 
he is sure to lengthen it and encumber it. He ignores 
the popular view. It must be refined, and sublimated, 
and in perilous mazes lost, and then Mr. Gladstone is 
in his glory. Of late, however, he has become a 
very different and much safer man. It was not 
till he became a member for South Lancashire that he 
appeared to be independent. Yet in office he will do 
strange things. He resigned rather than vote for an 
inquiry into the causes of the fearful calamities and 
horrors of the Crimean campaign. As the representa- 
tive of the body that is least permeated with popular 
feeling — the Oxford University — Mr. Gladstone 
seemed compelled to act in this Avay. On the Russian 
war — on the Divorce Bill — on the Church Rate Bill — 
lie thus voted on the unpopular side. Yet you fed 
tliat St. Stephen's does not contain an honestcr man, 
or one more conscientious, that 



58 Official Liberals. 

" IN'eitlLer gold, 
ISTor sordid fame, nor hope of heavenly bliss," 

could lead Mm to deviate a liair^s breadth from what 
he conceived to be the right. Nay^ more — occasion- 
ally he will boil over with enthusiasm_, as when^ in his 
Letters to Lord Aberdeen on the sufferings of the 
Neapolitan state prisoner^ he made 

" All Europe ring from side to side." 

His mission to the Ionian Islands — unfortunate as it 
turned out to be in every respect — was undertaken in 
a similar fit of enthusiasm. Indeed^ he has so much 
of this precious quality that it cannot all find a vent 
in public life. Hence a work on Homer^ too bulky 
even for men of ample leisure and scholarship to find 
time to read. 

Remember that Mr. Gladstone entered the House 
of Commons as the nominee of the late Duke of New- 
castle — the Duke who asked if he might not do as he 
liked with his own ? — admit that he is no party man 
— that he is very conscientious — that he is very 
anxious to learn, and the conclusion is that he admits 
now much that he opposed in earlier life. When he 
entered public life he was deeply attached to the 
great retrogressive party in Church and State, but 
he found much that had been clear in an Oxford 
atmosphere was quite the reverse in St. Stephen^s. 
How strenuous, for instance, was his opposition to the 
Emancipation Act. Let it also be said that he was 



Tlie m. lion. W. E. Gladstone. 59 

origiually a protectionist — tliat he is now a free-trader 
— that he has given up as impractieable the doctrines 
he enunciated in his " State in its Relation to the 
Church/-" Strange is it now that England — low-chui'ch 
and dissenting — should have for her chief man a be- 
liever in Apostolical Succession. Yet Mr. Gladstone 
defends this doctrine;, and, on account of it, is a firm 
believer in the Church of England. Chillingworth 
said, " I am fully persuaded there hath been no such 
succession.^' Bishop Stillingfleet declares, " Tliis 
succession is as muddy as the Tiber itself.'' Bishop 
Hoadly asserts, " It hath not pleased God, in his pro- 
vidence, to keep up any proof of the least probability 
or moral possibility of a regal and uninterrupted suc- 
cession, but there is a great appearance, and, humanly 
speaking, a certainty to the contrary, that the succes- 
sion had often been interrupted." Archbishop Whately 
says, '' There is not a minister in all Christendom who 
is able to trace up, with approach to certainty, his 
spiritual pedigree." Mr. Gladstone's faith in this re- 
spect, it may be, redeemed his many errors in Oxford 
eyes. Oxford might well be proud of the child 
of her training. Mr. Gladstone, in 1831, closed a 
brilliant career at Christ Church by taking a double 
first. 

It was a bright idea of Lord Palracrston, getting 
Mr. Gladstone to be Chancellor of the Exchequer. 
Out of office his mind would have burst all bonds of 
habit and wandered far away. He would have op- 



60 Official Liberals. 

posed the budget,, and the ministry would have been 
defeated. 

Mr. Gladstone is one of the few men in the House 
who rise to eloquence of the stateliest order. He is 
seldom^ if ever, historical and lost in precedent. He 
seems simply to rely upon his knowledge of the sub- 
ject;, and his ability to place it before the House in a 
commanding and attractive manner. How great is 
his merit we can best learn by contrast. When Glad- 
stone brought forward his first budget^ the House ex- 
pected a treat ; the pressure was enormous ; strangers 
had taken their places, waiting for the opening of the 
gallery, as early as noon, and though the Chancellor 
of the Exchequer spoke nearly five hours, though his 
speech had to do exclusively with those generally dry 
things, facts and figures, the House was crowded to 
the last, and not a stranger left the gallery. When 
Sir Cornewall Lewis, a good man but a poor speaker 
— a speaker, however, who amazingly improved before 
his death — opened his budget, the very reverse was the 
case. I believe there were ten strangers in the Speaker^s 
Gallery ; certainly there were not more than a 
hundred members in the House. Yet the occasion 
was an eventful one. Peace had just been proclaimed, 
but the extra expenditure of the war had not ceased, 
and had Mr. Gladstone been the Chancellor, the atten- 
tion of the country and the House would have been 
excited. As it was, a humdrum speaker performed 
his duties in a humdrum manner, and not even money 



The m. Hon. Robert Loivn. C)\ 

matters aroused a dumb House into eloquence and life. 
On the introduction of his last and memorable budget, 
the desire to hear Mr. Gladstonewas amazing. Strangers 
with members^ orders took their places as early as nine 
A.M., and, for the first time since he had left it, Lord 
Brougham occupied a seat in the House of Commons. 
Since the above was written, Mr. Gladstone has 
been emancipated from his Oxford bondage, and 
as the leader of the House of Commons introduced 
in 1866 a Reform Bill which found more favour out 
of the House than in it. Defeated in his attempt to 
carry it, he has gained a popularity of which he could 
never have dreamt. The people rally round him as 
the coming man. 

THE RIGHT HON. ROBERT LOWE. 

(London University — unopposed.) 

Perhaps no one in this country at this time enjoys 
more notoriety than the Right Hon. Robert Lowe. 
His speech in the closing week of the Reform debate 
created a sensation almost unrivalled ; and undoubtedly 
the position he maintained, and his bold and unflinch- 
ing manner, did much to win over the waverers wlio 
otherwise would never have dared to vote in Parlia- 
ment against what they had promised to supj^ort Avitli- 
out. A timid M.P. might be excused, he would argue 
with himself, if he ventured to oppose a measure, 
which in the opinion of a leading Liberal statesman 



62 Official Liberals. 

and quondam Member of a Liberal Administration, 
was to sacrifice tlie beroic work of many centuries 
" at tbe sbrine of revolutionary passion or maudlin 
enthusiasm •/' which was to '' pull down the venerable 
temple of our liberties ;" and which carried_, at once 

" The fatal horse pours forth the hiiman tide, 
Insulting Sinon flings his fii-ebrands wide ; 
The gates are burst, — the ancient rampart falls, 
And swarming millions climb its crumbling waUs." 

Those of us who have lived a few years and have 
good memories have heard all this before. Quite 
as much evil was predicted when the Corn-Laws 
were repealed_, when the first Reform Bill was 
carried — when Roman Catholics were allowed to take 
their seats in Parliament. It does not alarm us. We 
exclaim, like the man in Lord Lytton^s comedy of 
" Money," " In my day I have seen already eighteen 
crises, six annihilations of agriculture and commerce, 
four overthrows of the Church, and three last, final, and 
irremediable destructions of the entire Constitution." 
Yet, in spite of this argument, always answered by 
the logic of events, poor and worn threadbare as it is, 
Mr. Lowers speech was the speech of the debate. For 
a day it was the entire talk of London; in the City 
or at the West-end, in gay clubs or dull counting- 
houses, on the tops of ^buses, or on the Underground 
Railway, wherever man met man, people said, " 'Wh.a.t 
a speech was that of Mr. Lowe last night V It made 
Reformers vastly angry. Of the 175 electors of Calne, 



Tlie m. Hon. Bobert Loioe. 63 

61 took the trouble publicly to protest against it. 
Equally indignant v\^as the Reform League. A glance 
at Mr. Lowe as he sits^ white-haired and ruddy-faced, 
— hair white, not from age, but constitutionally, — will 
show that he is not the man to be frightened in a 
storm. Hark ! he is named by the Speaker ; and the 
House fills, and he is the point of attraction of every 
eye. What do you see ? A plain man, in theprime of 
life, dressed in black, speaking in a plain way, in a 
voice clearly audible all over the House, yet in a 
style almost conversational, and as far removed from 
the school-boy^s idea of oratory as it is possible ; no 
timidity, no nervousness, no stumbling sentences at 
first, to be followed by a lofty burst of declamation 
afterwards. That is not Mr. Lowers style. Apparently 
aiming at no effect, arguing, as it were, almost to 
himself, he holds on his way, with a slight tinge of 
pride as if exempt from the ordinary foibles of flesh 
and blood, — sarcastic, ironical, severe, making his 
points almost unconsciously, and as if not knowing 
them to be such till he is greeted with applause or 
laughter, and then he appears to enjoy them as much 
as any one else. From the appearance of the speaker, 
you would say naturally he liked to be unpopular, and 
to take the unpopular side. Guizot wrote of Lord 
Jcffcry tliat he had been so long a critic that in his 
old age he had left to him notliing to admire. Mr. 
Lowe seems to have been so long an Oxford tutor, 
and to have towered so long above those around him, 



64 Official Liberals. 

that in tlie House of Commons he can recognise no 
intellect superior^ no aim nobler^ no heart beating 
more generously than his own. Once in his life, it is 
true, he had a constituency, and then he had the nar- 
rowest escape possible from having his head broken by 
them. When he was in oflSce Ke was always in hot 
water with the Opposition ; and when he became an 
independent Liberal — a Liberal who confesses that he 
owes no allegiance to Earl Russell — he dealt the 
late Liberal Administration the heaviest blow it 
received. Uncontrolled by the fear of constituents, 
not flattered by having had his name omitted from 
the Administration formed on the death of Lord 
Palmerston, conscious of his power as an adminis- 
trator as well as a debater, a master of logic, and 
trained in all the subtleties of the schools, — Mr. 
Lowers position is unique — more gratifying to his own 
sense of personal importance than useful to himself or 
profitable to the State. His triumphs are great, but 
it is not every one who would envy him them. And, 
after all, it must be remembered that the part he has 
undertaken to play is not a difficult one. It is easy 
work in an aristocratic assembly to denounce de- 
mocracy — in a gathering of the rich to heap scorn 
upon the poor. It requires little courage to cast dirt 
on men who are not present to speak up and demand 
justice for themselves. Lord Elcho went to the meet- 
ing at St. Martinis Hall, and boldly met the working- 
classes whom he had denounced as unfit for the fran- 



The nt. Hon. Bohcrt Lowe. 65 

chise, face to face. INIr. Lowe, on tlie contrary, con- 
fines his intellectual displays to a more appreciative 
audience. Hence Ms renown, hence the ease with which 
he, a quondam member of an Administration pledged 
to Reform, could oppose it when it had a chance 
of being carried. In the House of Commons they are 
all honourable men. Selfishness cannot exist in that 
serene atmosphere. There the clear light of intellect 
separates the dross from what is sterling and noble in 
human actions ; and there deeds are done and words 
uttered and applauded as the inspiration of the purest 
patriotism, which, outside the House, and to the pro- 
fanuni vidgus, may have the appearance of being the 
result of disappointed ambition or party spleen. People 
are so uncharitable, they do say such unkind things 
when a man leaves his friends and joins the ranks of 
his foes ! It is a pity that it should be so. What, 
asks the satirist, — 

""WTiat makes all doctrines plain and clear? 
About two hundred pounds a year." 

As if place, or the want of it, except as a means of 
usefulness, was ever considered by a politician. But 
evidently this is a disgression, and by no means per- 
sonal to the Right Hon. Robert Lowe — the merciless 
logician who takes good care that he shall never be 
led away by " revolutionary passion or maudlin enthu- 
siasm,'' and yet who, as a practical man, has failed quite 
as much as if he had ; — perhaps more so. The states- 
man who ignores passion and enthusiasm must fail. 

F 



Q6 Official Liberals. 

All humari nature is against him. Years ago Mr. 
Lowe found this out. He was defeated and driven 
from office for this alone. In his capacity of Vice- 
President of Committee of Council on Education, he 
proposed — what ? Why, the most equitable thing in 
the world. He proposed to submit the pupils of the 
subsidised schools to periodical examinations, and to 
make the continuance of the subsidy dependent on 
the result of those examinations. As guardian of the 
public money entrusted to him for educational pur- 
poses, he proposed not to part with it till he had some- 
thing for it. And what was the result? Such a 
storm was raised by clergymen and schoolmasters that 
Mr. Lowe had to give way. Mr. Lowe, in our time, 
repeated the blunder of Hobbes, of Malmesbury, in 
his. In many things they resemble each other; es- 
pecially in this — that in their political systems they 
forget how in real life man is " flesh and blood,^^ not 
a machine to chop logic ; they forget how 

" the fiery passions tear- — 
The vultures of the mind.". 

Intellect by itself has never ruled the world, and 
never will. It is seldom it has the chance. Locke, 
it is true, tried his hand at constitution-making, but 
his experiment did not succeed. Mr. Lowe himself 
knows that he is alone in the House ; that the men 
whose applause he has won to-day by his uttering 
what they felt and had not the power to express, 
yesterday were his enemies, and to-morrow will be the 



The m. Hon. Robert Lowe. 07 

same. They fear his intellect, his knowledge, and his 
scorn. Mr. Lowe has nothing in common with the 
Newdegates, the Bentincks, and country squires. Al- 
together, life with Mr. Lowe has been a success. He 
does not in cloistered cell or academic hall contem- 
plate the battle from afar, but he rushes into it, and 
gloriously wears its sweat, and dust, and scars. Of 
respectable parentage, he has made himself what he 
is. His father was a clergyman in Nottinghamshire ; 
his mother was the daughter of a clergj'^man. He 
was born in 1811, educated at Winchester and Uni- 
versity College, Oxford, where in 1833 he took his 
B.A. degree. In 1836 he married and began the 
battle of life. In 1842 he was called to the bar 
at Lincoln's-inn. In 1843 he made a short trial of 
colonial life. Speedily he made his way in Austi'alia. 
From 1843 to 1850 he was a Member of Council at 
Sydney, and for the latter portion of the time M.P. 
for Sydney. He came back to this country, where he 
at once took a high position. In 1853 he entered the 
House of Commons as M.P. for Kidderminster, and 
he represented it in Parliament till 1859. He has now 
the gratification of being the first member returned by 
the London University. Of official life he has had ample 
experience. Originally he was Joint Secretary of the 
Board of Control. Then he became Paymaster of the 
Forces and Vice-President of the Board of Trade, and 
from 1859 to 18G4he was Vice-President of Committee 
of Council on Education, till driven from office by the 

f2 



68 Official Liberals. 

y&[j men who now hail him as the saviour of the 
State^ yet who would not return him to Parliament 
if they had the power. 

And this brings us to this suggestive fact — that 
Mr, Lowers Parliamentary existence was one of the 
best arguments for Eeform. He could not be said to 
have had a constituency. Calne had but 175 electors,, 
and was the property of the Marquis of Lansdowne. 
As it happened, the Marquis sent to the House of 
Commons a gentleman and a scholar ; but what are we 
to say of the system which allowed the Marquis, if 
he were so disposed, to return his butler or his groom ? 

THE RT. HON. JAMES STANSFELD. 

(Halifax— Stastsfeld, 5281; Akrotd, 5201; Greening, L., 2847.) 

It is now nearly thirty years since there were 
studying in University College, London, some young 
men of ample promise, which in after-life they have 
fully redeemed. Their presence in Gower-street was 
to a certain extent a pledge of their Liberal opinions 
and of the conscientiousness with which those opi- 
nions were entertained. I am not aware that, as re- 
gards pecuniary considerations, a residence at Uni- 
versity College was cheaper for students from 
the country than one at Oxford or Cambridge; — 
other reasons, then, must have led to the selection 
of the London University. It was the result of 
Liberal opinions ; that might be one reason for sup- 



The Bf. lion. James Stamfeld. 69 

porting it. Again^ the course of instruction "was 
more careful^ and embraced a wider range of subjects 
tban that comprehended in the curriculum of the 
older Universities; and then^ again, no subscription 
of a religious character was required from students. 
Young men were not as a matter of form asked to 
give their assent and consent to articles of belief which 
they did not hold, and thus to violate that virgin 
pm-ity of conscience which is essential to all true ex- 
cellence of character. This, I imagine, was the true 
reason why many selected the London College. 
Prestige was of course all the other way. Ambition 
pointed to Oxford or Cambridge as the portals through 
which fame aud wealth were to be won. The price 
to be paid by the student was not great in one sense, 
but tremendous in another. The many paid it wil- 
lingly, caring little, like Hook, whether the Articles 
were thirty-nine or forty that they were called upon 
to sign ; others, the thoughtful few, hesitated, and 
shrank from recklessness or thoughtlessness in such 
matters. For them there was the college in Gower 
Street, at which the wealthy snob sneered, and to 
which the Tory press gave the unpleasant appellation 
of Stiiikomalee. It was here that the late Under- 
Secretary of State for India laid the foundation of his 
future fame. 

Mr. Stansfeld is of a Yorkshire family. His uncle, 
Hamer Stansfeld of Leeds, was a man at one time 
well known in political life. His father had — I be- 



70 Official Liberals. 

lieve yet has — a legal official position at Halifax of a 
very respectable character. His son was also intended 
for the bar^ and was called at the Inner Temple in 
1846, though he did not practise. In 1844 he took 
his LL.B. degree. In the days of Stansfeld^s youth, 
the impulse given to the political world by the great 
wave of Reform, which had swept all before it for a 
time, was still felt. Men believed in national regene- 
ration by means of Parliamentary Reforms, and it is 
clear that at that time there was much for statesmen 
to do, or, rather, undo. Privilege was strong and 
outrageous in its defiance of right. The commercial 
policy which has since fertilised our land with wealth, 
and found food for all who would work, did not exist. 
Kind, tender-hearted Christian men and women, who 
wept over the sufferings of the black slave, had little 
sympathy to spare for the white. The knowledge 
which could alone elevate the working classes was 
denied them. Their restlessness and discontent, their 
readiness to obey such leaders as Feargus O^Connor, 
were viewed with suspicion and fear. The capitalist, 
and the Member of Parliament, and the parson, 
seemed to the operative his natural enemies. "The 
condition of England question,^" as it was then called, 
was indeed sad and pitiful. The masses were burning 
with the sense of intolerable wrong. They had helped 
the middle classes to win Reform, and then had been 
left in the lurch. Prisons were full and union- houses 
were full, and in the manufacturing districts the sol- 



The Rf. Hon. James Sfansfeld. 71 

dier superseded the police; and yet the people ex- 
claimed against the injustice of which they had been 
the victims, and lean, and pale, and ignorant, 
and uncared-for, rallied round the Charter, and madly 
talked of physical force. Old men trembled, and men 
like Lords Sidmouth and Eldon went down into their 
graves believing that the greatness and glory of Eng- 
land had departed for ever. The young, and the 
generous, and brave, took a more cheerful view. For 
this evil there was, in their opinion, a remedy, for this 
disease a cure. Of this number James Stansfeld was 
one. It was true that 

" Many an old philosopliy 
On Argive heights divinely sang;" 

but new times needed new philosophies, and surely in 
some or other of them would the age gain what it 
required. The new seed fell upon good ground. By 
the press, by public meetings, by active organization, 
a kindlier spirit was created and the way prepared for 
victory. The dangerous chasm between the rich and 
the poor was bridged over. There was no longer a 
yawning gulf with Lazarus on one side and Dives on 
the other. 

Thus as a student Mr. Stansfeld was something more 
than a mere plodding pedant. It was not success at 
the bar at which alone he aimed. He cared far more 
for literature and politics. With the people he 
sympathised, and for them he laboured. His 
father-in-law was a man of similar ideas, and 



72 Official Liberals. 

at Ms house Mr. Stansfeld would meet many to en- 
courage him in his political career. 

In the battle of freedom as fought in other lands 
Mr. Stansfeld took his part. In the associations 
formed on behalf of Polish, or Hungarian^ or Italian 
nationalities he was a cordial worker. When the 
revolutionary years of 1848-9 had ended disastrously, 
and London was crowded with refugees, he and his 
lady were the first to receive them. At his resi- 
dence they were greeted with the solace which 
preserves the patriot from despair and rekindles the 
heroic flame. Kossuth, Mazzini, and others scarcely 
less illustrious, and equally deserving, found guidance 
and friendship. Mrs. Stansfeld translated Mazzini^s 
writings into English, and by thus popularising his 
ideas in this country, an impulse was given to the 
cause of Italian regeneration which in time paved the 
way for the statesman who reaps the fruit of the 
thinker's thoughts. 

Thus it came to pass that without seeking fame 
Mr. Stansfeld became famous, and the result was that, 
when a general election took place, the people of 
Halifax, having first consulted the father, asked the 
son if he would be their representative in Parlia- 
ment. The latter returned an affirmative reply. 
Accordingly he was elected in the handsomest manner. 
It is said a prophet has no honour in his own country ; 
Mr. Stansfeld is an exception to this general rule. 

In the House of Commons he took his seat below 



The Rt. Hon. James Siatisfeld. 73 

the gangway on the Ministerial side, near Cobden and 
Bright,, and the few but powerful men who cared 
neither for Whig nor Tory, but emblazoned on their 
banners popular rights and progress. The member 
for Halifax speedily gained the ear of the House. His 
style of speaking was eminently Parliamentary. His 
manner was singularly pleasing and attractive. There 
were traces in him, too, of a higher culture than tJiat 
of the party to which he belonged. He had attained 
to a richer and a fuller vein of thought, a broader 
platform, a Avider range of sympathy. Let it not be 
understood that we have one word of reproach to utter 
against those noble leaders who had reluctantly, and 
at great personal sacrifice, entered the senate in the 
midst of an angry contest to plead before a hostile 
audience an unpopular cause. But circumstances had 
been favoiu'able to Mr. Stansfeld. Literature, and 
philosophy, and science, and art, had enlarged and 
enriched his mind. He belonged to a younger and a 
better school. Of that school he was the first and 
ablest exponent. Prejudice was disarmed when the 
House saw that the new speaker was no blatant 
demagogue, but a polished, amiable, unassuming gen- 
tleman, sincere, self-possessed, equal to the occasion ; 
and when by his motions on national expenditure, he 
skilfully made himself master of the situation, it was 
felt that in ofi'cring him official responsibility Lord 
Palmcrston had acted wisely and well. Mr. Stansfeld 
became a junior Lord of the Admiralty in 18G3, and 



74 Official Liherals. 

was no sooner in office than his capacity for it became 
clear. He had mastered all the difficult questions 
connected with the Admiralty ; he had given great 
satisfaction to the House by the way in which he per- 
formed his duties; the Duke of Somerset^ his chief, 
was delighted^ — so it was understood ; but Mr. Stans- 
feld had committed a fault — he had not thrown over- 
board the friend of his youth. In spite of the foul 
slanders which had been associated with the name of 
the illustrious Mazzini_, he still retained his friendship 
for the Italian exile. The Tory party^ aided by Mr. 
W. Cox, raised a storm, and Mr. Stansfeld went his 
way into an honourable retirement, but he did not fall 
unavenged. At the general election for 1865 Mr. 
Cox, ''your old and long-tried friend," as he termed 
himself pathetically, was unseated for Finsbury, and 
in the House of Commons his diminutive figure is seen 
no more. When, on the decease of Lord Palmerston, 
Earl Russell was entrusted with the seals of office, it 
was evident to all that Mr. Stansfeld''s services would 
be required in the new Administration. Accordingly, 
he was appointed Under-Secretary of State for India. 
It seems to the outside public an undesirable arrange- 
ment to take a man from an office the duties of which 
he has perfectly mastered, and to place him in one 
where he has to begin anew ; but we may presume 
Earl Russell had reasons satisfactory to himself; 
and India is a noble field for statesmanship of the 
highest and most ambitious order. 



Mr. H. Ausfen Layard. 75 

Mr. Stansfcld is now in the prime of life. He was 
born in 18.20, and is remarkably youthful for his 
years. Thongh guilty of the Dundreary affectation of 
wearing his hair parted in the middle, he has nothing 
of the fop about him. In his student days he was 
rather negligent in his attire, but he is now always 
neatly dressed. He is of medium height, and by no 
means robust. His hair is brown, and I fancy his 
eyes are of a greyish cast. The perpetual smile upon 
his face indicates the gentleness and good-nature of a 
character, I believe, as pure and lofty as that of any 
^Icmber in the House. On several occasions he has 
appeared upon the platform in connection with the 
meeting of the Religious Liberation Society. Of 
whatever Liberal Administration may be formed it is 
clear he must be one. Of another thing also we may 
be sure — that he will side with no Ministry that does 
not attempt to translate into legislative acts all that 
is best and truest in the spirit of the age. 

MR. H. AUSTEN LAYARD. 

( South WARK— Locke, 6489 ; Layard, 6371 ; Cotton, C, 2587.) 

No one who studies public men and public affairs can 
doubt the doctrine of the resurrection. When, a few 
years since, Lord Palmerston was defeated on the Chi- 
nese war, and appealed to the country, what a crushing 
defeat was sustained by his opponents ! To borrow the 
language of the turf, they were " nowhere." Man- 



76 Official Liberals. 

Chester rejected Bright and Gibson; Mr. Cobden dared 
not attempt the West Ridings and actually was re- 
jected by Huddersfield; Mr. Layard lost his seat for 
Aylesbury, and^, for a time, had to submit to parlia- 
mentary extinction. I can scarce imagine a heavier 
calamity for an able or ambitious man. He who is 
accustomed to parliamentary life must feel existence a 
blank without it. To play a worthy part in the sena- 
torial drama finds employment for the greatest energies 
of our greatest men. In the morning there are com- 
mittees to attend, blue books to study, speeches to 
prepare ; in the evening there are eight hours of talk 
to be endured, deputations to be conversed with in the 
lobby, and endless business, miscellaneous and other- 
wise. For all common life a member of Parliament is 
unfitted. What greatness lies in his name ! how he is 
reported in newspapers ! how much is made of him at 
Exeter Hall ! what a boon he is on the direction of a 
public company ! and in dining-rooms and drawing- 
rooms what delight attaches to his every word ! How 
unhappy must be an American President after his four 
years at the White House are over ! What a settled 
melancholy must lie in the heart of hearts of an ex- 
Lord Mayor ! How flat, stale, and unprofitable must 
have been existence to Alexander when he found there 
were no more worlds to win ! How suicidal must have 
been the feelings of such an one as Tom Sayers when 
his hour was gone — when we never mentioned him — 
when his name was never heard — when our lips were 



Mr. II. Auden Layard. 77 

forbiclclen to speak tliat once familiar -svoi-d ! But 
with au M.P. dissolved into common clay it is worse, 
far worse. However, let him not despair; his tui'u 
may come — if he be a man of mark and merit it must 
come. Mr. Layard at length found his way back 
into St. Steplien^s, and Southwark has done well in 
sending to Parliament an M.P. worthy to occupy the 
seat of Sir Charles Napier, of Sir W: Molesworth, of 
Daniel Whittle Harvey. 

j\Ir. Henry Austen Layard, in a book published in 
1853, I find, is described as " traveller and author. ^^ 
A few years make a great change in the position of 
clever men. Time brings opportunities, and opportunity 
is a goodlier gift of the gods than an ancient heritage 
or an honoured name. The Russian war broke out, 
and opportunities came to all. Aged generals grasped 
them in vain ; timid admirals saw them, and their 
hearts quailed ; quarter-master-generals, and heads of 
departments, and old fogies, whom England had igno- 
rantly worshipped for half a century, for once found 
themselves face to face with them, and iguominionsly, 
and amidst universal contempt, let them go by for ever. 
In the midst of this wreck and ruin Layard^'s figure, 
rapidly emerging from the palpable obscure, became 
firmly fixed before the public eye. As I have abeady 
said, he was known to the public as an author and 
traveller. He had been attached to the embassy at 
the Porte, and afterwards, on the retirement from the 
Foreign-office of Lord Palmerston, and the accession of 



78 Official Liberals. 

Earl Granville^ he filled, the office of Under Secretary 
■of State for Foreign Affairs. In 1852 he was returned 
to Parliament for Aylesbury^ and in the following year 
he was presented with the freedom of the City of 
London^ in consideration of his enterprising discoveries 
among the ruins of Nineveh, Truly, Layard^s lot has 
fallen amongst pleasant places. I am not aware that 
the public made much of Captain Cook, or that the 
freedom of the City of London was presented to Bel- 
zoni, or that Mungo Parke had a place in the Foreign- 
office ; but those were not days of Hudson testimonials, 
and now Virtue is sulky if she is her own reward. 

In the session of 1855 Layard played for a higher 
stake. Hitherto he had been fortunate in the extreme. 
He made a desperate effort to be the man of the time. 
With the intelligent public out of doors, upon whom 
loose declamation is sure to tell, he had already become 
that ; but he aimed in the House of Commons to 
attain a similar place — a game infinitely more difficult, 
and to be played with a caution and coolness which 
Mr. Layard unfortunately did not possess. His ante- 
cedents were in his favour, and the House lent him a 
willing ear. When he rose to speak it grew full; it 
gave him credit for a knowledge of the affairs of the 
East possessed but by few of its members. Unfortu- 
nately, he stated facts and instances at random. He 
attacked men who had relations in the House ready 
and willing to defend them. He excited much aristo- 
cratic indignation, and his vehement assertions were 



Mr. H. Austen Layard. 79 

met by contradictions equally veliemcntj and more 
correct. Still, he was a favourite ■with the House. 
He then put his name doAvn to specific motions and 
questions innumerable. On such a day he would call 
the attention of the House to the condition of the 
army, to the state of affairs in Asia, to the mis- 
management of the Horse Guards, as the case might 
be. The administrative reformers believed that their 
hour of triumph at length had come. In its weak 
simplicity the radical press avowed that the nation, at 
length, was about to be saved, and the teeming rabid 
radicalism of the metropolis smiled with unwonted 
glee. The night came, the Strangers' Gallery was 
crowded ; and, in their mistaken confidence, the long 
rows of St. Stephen's Hall were crowded with indi- 
viduals waiting to take their turn. Alas, alas ! the 
night came, but the dashing Layard held back. Not 
once but frequently Avas this the case. In the language 
of the field it was said of Mr. Layard that he " craned.-" 
When a horse will not take a fence he is said to 
" crane." No man can do this repeatedly with im- 
punity, and Mr. Layard cannot be much surprised if, 
in consequence, he sank somewhat in the opinion of 
his admirers of the better sort. 

It is charged by indignant Protestants that the 
Church of Rome admits and maintains the doctrine of 
reserve — but who does not ? Is it pleasant for the 
lady of the house to hear her pert child inform Mr. 
Smithcrs that yesterday Ma said he was a bore, and 



80 Official Liberals. 



wished he were at Hanover ? Is not a candid friend 
the most irritating creature on the face of the globe ? 
Do you think Anna Maria would forgive you if, in 
her alburn^ instead of comparing her to blue-eyed 
Minerva^ you simply expressed the honest wish that she 
would no twear her hair in curlpapers — that she would 
mend the holes in her stockings ? Would you tell 
the wife of your bosom that you had made a mis- 
take in marrying her, and that you were pining for 
one who now never could be yours ? It is just so in 
the House of Commons. Often silence is golden 
there. Mr. Carter forgot this when he was member 
for Tavistock, and he never would have been listened 
to again ; so did Robert Lowe in his debate on the 
Corporation Tolls, and the result was a storm of indig- 
nation that nearly shelved Mr. Lowe himself, and com- 
pletely shelved his bill ; so did poor Duffy on a memo- 
rable occasion, and the House was in hot water for six 
weeks after. But Layard made another blunder. His 
truth, substantially right, was often circumstantially 
wrong — right in its essence, wrong in its accidents. 
He thus committed a double offence, and gave the 
Philistines reason to rejoice. Yet the House lent him 
a willing ear; to no man was it more generous or 
forgiving. Mr. Layard did not do himself justice ; he 
ought to have been more guarded in his language ; 
less off-hand and desultory ; his matter should have 
been more carefully prepared. His hot temper 
also appears to have been in his way. He has 



Mr. II. Austen Layard, 81 

travelled in Italy, and the East, and in India, and 
there are vital questions touching all these places. He 
thus returned to Parliament under peculiarly advanta- 
geous cii'cumstances. Mr. Layard should remember, 
after all, it is a fine thing to be able to lift up one^s 
voice in the Parliament of Great Britain and Ireland, 
to stand up there, in the midst of principalities and 
powers, to speak history, and what may be quoted a 
hundred years to come. A foremost place there is 
no mean thing ; not without difficulty to be attained 
unto, nor lightly to be whistled away. 

His difficulties have been many and discouraging. 
Tliere have been in his career times when he has been 
alone in the House — when he has had alone to bear 
the brunt of indignant colonels and irate officers of 
militia. Some men would have cowed before the 
storm. The House, in its harsh and angry moods, is 
not a pleasant place to speak in — not a bear-garden, 
nor yet exactly a rapturously applauding Exeter HaU; 
but the worst of it is, the independent members fight 
on their own account. They take good care that their 
enemies do not act on the old maxim, " Divide and 
rule," for they divide of their own accord, and there- 
fore are overruled. Hardly half-a-dozen of them pull 
together, but every one of them does that which is 
right in his own eyes. If this be a blunder in military 
warfare, it is criminal in the House of Commons, 
where a band of united men, one in heart and aim, 
can do so much, and where the existence of such a 

G 



82 Official Liberals. 

bandj in the name of right to protest against the 
doing of wrong, is so imperatively required. But 
each man is disposed of by himself. He makes his 
charge. It is flung back in his face — heavily by one, 
historically by another, pedantically by a third, flip- 
pantly by a fourth. From the Opposition benches 
comes a loud and fierce denial, not unmixed with 
scorn — all around is an atmosphere charged with 
thunder. There is the low, deep murmur of dissent; 
the inattention, which is more confusing than open 
interruption ; heavy impotence, unassailable and 
conscious of its strength. From back benches 
on both sides, what a cluster of aggrieved rise to 
speak \ uttering what common-place, and received 
with what cheers ! To face that Macedonian phalanx 
requires some nerve. Layard has done this ; and you 
may measure his claims to public favour by the extent, 
and depth, and bitterness of their hate. His triumph 
at Southwark, however, was an ample reward. It 
ought to make even an M.P. a patriot. It again 
placed Mr. Layard in office. 

But you have not seen Mr. Layard ? On the front 
ministerial row any night you may see him, with his 
bright, dark blue eye, and thick beard tinged with 
grey, and somewhat boyish face. He is an active- 
looking man, with a very good voice, and considerable 
fluency and readiness, generally very plainly dressed, 
and not in the oriental costume in which you may have 
seen him represented. It may be that Mr. Layard's 



Tlie m. Hon. Edward Cardwell. 83 

opportunity has gone by; but it is clear, for some 
time to come, his acquaintance with the East will 
recommend him to the House. 



the right hon. edward cardwell. 

(Oxford City.) 

In the last Ministry of Lord Palmerston the office of 
Secretary of State for the Colonies was held by Mr. 
Edward Cardwell, M.P. for Oxford City, one of the 
Peelitcs who have developed into as ardent reformers 
as is consistent with the growth of pu])lic opinion. 
The right honourable gentleman was first retui'ned to 
Parliament in 1842, as Member for Clitheroe. He 
next had tlie honour of representing Liverpool, losing 
which, and haAdng unsuccessfully contested Ayrshire, 
he became M.P. for the City of Oxford, on the ap- 
pointment of Sir W. Page Wood to the Vice-Chan- 
cellorship in 1853. He has served the country in 
various offices. His first appointment dates from 
1845, when he was Secretary of the Treasury; in 
1853 he was President of the Board of Trade; in 
1859 he became Chief Secretary for L-eland; in 1861 
he was appointed Chancellor of the Duchy of Lan- 
caster, and in 18G4 Secretary of State for the Colonies. 
When he accepted the latter office he had to deal with 
the fatal Ashantee Expedition, and the War in New 
Zealand. Both questions were happily settled before 
he and his colleagues resigned in 18G7. It is to his 

g2 



84 Official Liberals. 

credit that he inserted in the Crown Colonies the thin 
edge of the wedge, and by insisting on payments from 
Colonial exchequers for British soldiers,, did something 
to rouse the colonists to self-defence^ and at the same 
time relieve the mother-country. In British North 
America the state of affairs was anything but satis- 
factory when Mr. Cardwell accepted office; the 
American Civil War had alarmed the Canadians, and 
made them feel the need of greater security. This 
alarm was also increased by the movements of Fenians 
on the border, and by the boast of certain orators and 
newspapers in New York. The idea of a Confedera- 
tion was suggested to many, and speedily became 
popular in Canada, but it afterwards appeared that 
in New Brunswick and Prince Edward's Island the 
people were averse from it. Mr. Cardwell, how- 
ever, never ceased to support it vigorously, and the 
main obstacle to it has, in our time, been at last 
removed by a decisive verdict in its favour at the 
late elections in New Brunswick. Nor were these 
the only difficulties with which Mr. Cardwell has had 
to contend. The excitement caused in Australia by 
the continuance of transportation, the outbreak in 
Jamaica, in suppressing which Governor Eyre appears 
to have been guilty of enormous blunders, and the 
Constitutional crisis in Victoria, were all very alarm- 
ing occurrences, but which Mr. Cardwell appears to 
have met in the most judicious manner. We were all 
relieved by hearing that Governor Darling had been 



TJie at. Hon. Edward Car dwell 85 

recalled, that a commission had been appointed to 
proceed to Jamaica, and that wise and sensible con- 
cessions had been made to the Australian colonists. 
A colonial minister wields an enormous power, and if 
he be ignorant, or reckless, or incapable, he may do 
the country an irreparable wrong. Mr. Cardwell is a 
man of great talent, but so was Charles Townshend, 
who lost us America. England without her colonial 
empire would be poor indeed. Happily in our days 
it is public opinion that rules in high places, but 
public opinion generally is very little exercised with 
colonial affairs. 

The time has gone by when it is said as a sign of 
grace in a statesman, that he is a free trader. Pro- 
tection is dead in politics, and is chiefly confined to 
enlightened Americans, or to the members of Trades' 
Unions. At a recent Mansion House dinner, no less 
an orator than Mr. Disraeli appealed to the commercial 
legislation of the last twenty years as a proof of the 
way in which Parliament responded to the wants and 
wishes of the community. But when Mr. Cardwell 
commenced his free trade career under Sir Robert 
Peel the contest was bitter. Sir Robert and his 
followers were exposed to the most galling attacks in 
all quarters. On one side there was the Anti- Corn-Law 
League, and on the other the county party, of Avliich 
he was so proud to be at the head. It was hard for 
him — taught by necessity to leave them, and carry a 
system of free trade, under which they declared 



86 Official Liberals. 

England would sink never more to rise. Nor did the 
Uepeal of the Corn Laws strengthen his position. A 
few months subsequently the Peel Cabinet succumbed 
under the hostile attacks of Lord George Bentinck 
and the Protectionists biirning for revenge, and of 
Lord John liussell and the "Whigs eager for place ; and 
when deprived of their leader by an accidental fall 
from his horse, it seemed as if the Peelites — such as 
Cardwell and Gladstone — had lost their last chance of 
official life. Fortunately for the country such was 
not the case. 

It is scarcely necessary to observe, that Mr. Cardwell 
speaks fluently and clearly. He came into the House 
with a high university reputation, and at once was 
listened to. Although not a professed orator, his 
speeches are always worth hearing. He is now at an 
age when his powers and capacities for work are at 
their highest; his services are indispensable to any 
Liberal administration, as he is affable and courteous 
to all, and especially conciliatory where his par- 
ticular duties are concerned. Gentlemen with red 
hair are supposed to be peculiarly liable to gusts of 
passion. Mr. Cardweirs hair is undeniably red, but 
in speaking he is one of the coolest and calmest men 
in the House. 



TJie Rt. Hon. G. J. GoscJien. 87 

THE RIGHT HON. G. J. GOSCHEN. 

(London— GoscHEN, 6520 ; Crawford, 6258 ; Lattrence, 6215 ; 
Bell, C, 6130; Twells, C, 6199; Gibbons, C, 6013; 
RoTuscniLD, 5995.) 

Many, many years ago there was a German Jew book- 
seller in Leipsic. Leipsic is the Paradise of book- 
sellers,, and till we got the duty off paper the Germans 
were the most outrageous bookmakers in the world. 
The Jews, I think, are like the Quakers, and don't 
take poor people into the denomination, — at any rate, 
most of them appear to prosper wonderfully. The old 
bookseller prospered, his son prospered, and became 
the founder of a mercantile and foreign banking-house 
in London. The firm of Goschen and Fruhling be- 
came a very wealthy and important one, and the 
grandson of the German bookseller received an educa- 
tion side by side with the nobles and magnates of the 
land. lie did more — by the mere force of brain he 
towered above them all. From Rugby he went to 
Oriel College, Oxford, where he took a double first, 
and won the blue ribbon of the academic world. 

From Oxford Mr. Goschen appears to have returned 
peacefully and quietly to the pursuits of trade, and to 
the office in ancient Austin-friars. If he had ambition 
it docs not seem to have taken a political turn, and to 
liavc been developed rather with reference to his own 
peculiar vocation. His work on '' The Theory of Ex- 
changes" is said to be a very valuable one, and has 



88 Official Liberals, 

reached a third or fourth edition. The young hanker 
in time might rise to the top of the tree : in the great 
city in which wealth is honoured as the one thing 
needful^ where gold pays for all, and covers all, and 
compensates for all, where it c^n command the smile 
of woman and the intellect of man, he might have 
grown to be one of the wealthiest. Money makes 
money. Fortune always aids the rich. The new 
banking-house might rival and surpass all others ; on 
every exchange in Europe the name of Goschen 
might be as significant and far-famed as that of 
Rothschild. It is something to be a great capitalist 
■ — to be courted by princes and kings, to gather up 
into one^s coffers the revenues of nations, to hold in 
one's hands the sinews of peace or war : Mr. Goschen 
was in a fair way of becoming this, when he was 
arrested in his mercantile career and returned to Par- 
liament as the representative of the wealthiest con- 
stituency in the empire. Let us now explain how 
this came to pass. Mr. Goschen was not known to 
the political world at <"ho time of his appearing as a 
candidate before the citizens of London. They were 
in a state of the most profound ignorance as to his 
ability, or his character, or his political opinions. He 
had no antecedents ; in unreformed times this did not 
matter, as the proprietor of any particalar borough 
felt that, as the Duke of Newcastle said, he might do 
what he liked with his own, and return whom he 
pleased ; but the Reform Bill introduced popular 



The m. Hon. G. J. Goschen. 89 

election, and surely, it may be argued, to win a popular 
election a party must put forward a popular man. To 
a certain extent this is true ; Mr. Goschen would not 
have had a chance for "Westminster, or Marylebone, 
or the Tower Hamlets, or Southwark, or Lambeth. 
In the City it is otherwise. How is this ? The 
answer is, the City is a constituency sui generis. In 
the City are the head-quarters of trade and commerce ; 
the City rules the mercantile world, in the City wealth 
is popularity, in the City the Bank fashions opinions 
just as the Court at the West-end, and in the City the 
bank-parlour is an imperium in imjierio. Whom it 
honours the City honours ; whom it rejects and 
despises the City rejects and despises. INIr. Goschen 
was brought forward by the bank-parlour ; he was a 
bank-director ; his friend Mr. W. Crawford, M.P., was 
a bank director, and Mr. Kirkman Hodgson, who pro- 
posed him, was a bank director. Originally the seat 
was offered to Mr. Hodgson, who declined it, feeling 
himself safer and more comfortable in the snug 
little borough of Bridport. It was not anticipated 
that Parliament would last long ; a general election, 
with all its trouble, and annoyance, and expense, was 
looming in the future ; so Mr. Goschen was returned. 
It was said he was a foreigner, and far too young and 
untried a man to represent such a constituency as that 
of London. But the bank-parlour answered for his 
fitness, and that Avas enough ; and thus Mr. Goschen 
entered Parliament. As M.P. for the City of London, 



90 Official Liberals. 

as the head of an important firm, as a bank director, 
he had enough to do, — as much, one would think, as 
his energies could accomplish or his ambition desire. 
The general public knew littl'e of him, and would not 
have been disappointed had he sat obscurely on the 
back benches behind Ministers, contented with cheer- 
ing his leaders and with voting for his party right or 
wrong. A young man flushed with collegiate success, 
and M.P. for London, could not, however, sink so 
low. Mr. Goschen soon made his mark in the 
House, and increased in St. Stephen's his Oxford 
fame. He returned to his constituents with a claim 
on them, and that claim they willingly endorsed. In 
some quarters a diflferent result was anticipated. A 
great deal had been said about Conservative reaction. 
We were told this would be made very clear at the 
General Election in 1865. At any rate, in the City we 
were assured that the Conservatives were in a position to 
carry two seats. Accordingly, two most respectable 
Conservatives were put forward — Messrs. Fowler and 
Lyall. The result soon demolished the pleasing 
dream of Conservative reaction as far as the City was 
concerned. The numbers were — Goschen, 7102 ; 
Crawford, 7086; Lawrence, 6637; Rothschild, 6525. 
The Conservatives, in spite of aU their boasts, and 
liberal expenditure, and extensive organization, were 
far below the lowest of the Liberals. Their numbers 
were as follows : — Fowler, 4197 ; Lyall, 4086. 

Lord Palmerston's sudden but not unexpected de- 



Tlie m. Hon. G. J. Goschen. 91 

cease placed Earl Russell at the head of affairs. His 
lordship is supposed to believe that the territories 
known as Great Britain and Ireland are the special 
appanage of the Wlaigs, to be ruled by them and for 
them. The Whigs have always been an exclusively 
aristocratic party. They behaved very badly to Mr. 
Burke ; and in the days of Mr. Brougham^s prime, 
when his talents were omnipotent^ when his popularity 
lifted them into popularity^ when they could have 
made no head at all in the House of Commons against 
the iMinistry with Peel on the one side^ and the 
Radicals^ such as Hume^ and Burdett^ and Hobhouse 
on the other J — even then they ignored his claims to 
leadership and took for that high post an honest but 
prosy son of a nobleman, known to history as Lord 
Althorpe. Even before then Mr. Tierney had actually 
been formally installed by the Whigs as their leader, 
when the most formidable person to the Tories was 
undoubtedly Mr. Brougham. Ability, no matter how 
commanding, has never been, in the opinion of the 
Whigs, deemed of itself sufficient to win for any man 
the formal leadership of their party. Tliey have often 
availed themselves of the services of some new man of 
talent, but have always done so reluctantly. He has 
always been taught to consider himself a subordinate, 
not an equal ; and if the irresistible energy of Mr. 
Brougham led him often to assume a bolder character, 
it is clear this activity and superiority displeased the 
Whig aristocracy, and they, as Mr. Roebuck has shown 



92 Official Liberals. 

in after yearsj seized tlie opportunity wliicli events 
offered of punishing Mr. Brougham, and separating 
themselves entirely from him. It is not clear that 
Earl Russell has grown much wiser ; but he had 
shuffled his cards so often that they were serviceable 
no longer. The pack was used up j and thus, the 
grandson of the Jew German bookseller actually 
rose to be one of the Cabinet of which the aristo- 
cratic Earl Russell was the head. This is a fact which 
speaks well for the country. In spite of his youth 
(Mr. Goschen was born in 1831) he was a Cabinet 
Minister. His duties, of course, as Chancellor of the 
Duchy of Lancaster were not onerous ; but as a mem- 
ber of the Cabinet in the House of Commons he will 
have no sinecure. He is committed to a political 
career for which his great talent and his readiness in 
debate fit him. In many quarters an opinion was 
entertained that Mr. Goschen will be the future 
Chancellor of the Exchequer when Mr. Gladstone will 
be called upon by the voice of the nation to occupy 
a more distinguished post. 

Mr. Goschen is tall and slim, with dark eyes and 
hair, pale face, and a slightly foreign cast of counte- 
nance. He is a married man. A little of the old 
German Jew grandfather is still visible; but he gives 
you an idea of intelligence and power. He looks as 
if he was equal to his place. As the trainer would 
say, he is in good condition ; and he stands a living 
specimen of the catholic, genial character of the free 



The Rt. Hon. Sir JRobert Peel 93 

land in which he lives. Anybody may be an English- 
man. AVe Tvelcome them all^ Jew or Gentile ; the 
more the merrier; the more mixed the blood the 
better the breed ; and if he have brain, and energy, 
and opportunity, any Englishman may rise to wealth, 
or fame, or power. 

THE RT. HON. SIR ROBERT PEEL. 

(Tamworth— Peel, 1132 ; Bulwer, 827 ; J. Peel, 798.) 

According to Lord Macaulay, nothing is so valuable 
or so essential to success in the British Senate as 
oratory. " It has stood,^' he tells us, " in the place of 
all other acquirements. It has covered ignorance, 
weakness, rashness — the most fatal maladministration. 
A great negotiator is nothing when compared with 
a great debater, and a minister who can make a suc- 
cessful speech need trouble himself little about an un- 
successful expedition. This is the talent which has 
made judges without law, and diplomatists without 
French — which has sent to the Admiralty men who 
did not know the stern of a ship from her bowsprit, 
and to the East India Board men who did not know 
the difference between a rupee and a pagoda — which 
made a Foreign Secretary of Mr. Pitt, who, as 
George II. said, never opened Vattel, and which was 
very near making a Chancellor of the Exchequer of 
Mr. Sheridan, who could not work a sum in long 
division." Oratory has done this ; but there is another 



94 Official Liberals. 

power quite as potent in tlie State^ and that is pro- 
perty ; that has made dull men peers,, and turned very 
flippant young gentlemen into statesmen. In the 
letters recently published by the Duke of Buckingham 
it is very amusing to see how Mr. Fremantle writes 
to know how he and the Marquis's men are to vote, 
and how great a card a Marquis was for all parties. 
The Reform Bill, it is true, did away with much of 
this evil — rotten burghs and close burghs are scarce 
now-a-days ; they had aroused such national indigna- 
tion that they were swept away. But still there is a 
great charm in birth and connexion. A man who has 
them may always be a statesman. He belongs to the 
governing classes, and inherits statesmanship as he 
does his estate. And not only does he get a place in 
Parliament, and very frequently office, but besides, he 
has an easy constituency — a constituency that will be 
thankful for small services, and that will be sure to give 
him very little trouble. At Lambeth, on one occasion, 
Mr, Uoupell met his constituents. They assembled 
to hear him deliver his account of his stewardship. 
Mr. Roupell was very fluent and communicative — very 
naturally, with such a power of talking out of the 
House of Commons, his comparative silence in was 
remarkable. How long was he going to be a dummy ? 
was the question put him by a logical and impertinent 
elector. Now, such interruptions do not happen to 
proprietors of hereditary seats in Parliament. 

Sir Robert Peel is a proof of this. He is the son 



The m. Hon. Sir JRodert Peel. 95 

of his father — a very great fact, and naturally so, "when 
we remember the late Sir Robert was England's fore- 
most man. Sir Robert Peel is also the eldest son — a 
better thing still, for the eldest sou of the Peel family 
inherits the representation of Tamworth. He is born 
a statesman, and, if he live long enough, may be a 
real one — if his talents and training fit him for such a 
career. From his father he must have learnt much. 
From his diplomatic career — at what he calls an im- 
pressionable period of life — he must have acquired a 
little knowledge of the men who rule Europe at this 
time ; and his House of Commons experiences have 
already given him a solidity and a power which was, 
at one time, not anticipated. When, all at once, from 
being almost the buffoon of the House, he rose to be 
worthy of his parentage, it was a little thing that did 
it. At the close of the Italian war, France annexed 
Savoy. Of course Switzerland was uncomfortable. If 
France trembled at an Italian kingdom twelve millions 
strong, much more reason had Switzerland to tremble 
at the nearness of the French Emperor and his millions 
of fighting men. The English House of Commons 
seemed cowed and spiritless. Mr. Bright, true to his 
peaceful instincts, treated the flagrant violation of right 
as a matter of the utmost insignificance. All at once 
rose, from the benches behind ministers, a voice — 
potent and unmistakeablc — on behalf of the wronged, 
and against the wrong-doer. It was that of Sir Robert 
Peel. He had lived in Switzerland, he loved the 



96 Official Liberals. 

country and its people; he saw their danger, and 
sympathized with their fears. Immediately the words 
were caught up, and re-echoed all over England. We 
were glad to hear them from the son of Sir Eobert 
Peel. We felt that at last he had risen to the part 
which nature fitted him to play — that he had put 
away childish things, and become a man. 1860 is the 
date of Sir Robert PeeFs conversion. He then ex- 
perienced what, in theology, would be called " new 
birth." Still more may be said of Sir Robert. He 
became — at the same time begging the House to be 
aware that he is not a religious man — the champion 
of the persecuted Christians in Spain. Of course our 
sympathy is with such excellent people, but the question 
was — how were we to interfere ? We have no Cromwells 
now-a-days, and have long ceased to " avenge slaugh- 
tered saints, whose bones lie cold.^^ But according 
to the popular view, we ought to do this ; and Sir 
Robert represented the popular view. In this capa- 
city Sir Robert addressed a meeting at Liverpool, 
with the view to obtain from the Government assis- 
tance in mitigating the persecutions against Protestants 
in Spain. Of course there was an " immense audience, 
and resolutions were passed in conformity with the 
object for which the meeting was called." In such an 
agitation there is no responsibility — that alone rests 
with the Government, and he who heads it has much 
to gain, for we are a Protestant people, and sympa- 
thize warmly with Protestants all the world over. 



Sh- Itohert Ted. 97' 

Popular demonstration is^ however, not without its 
effect, even if it leads to no decided action in higher 
quarters. 

Sir Robert is a fine, gay-looking man. He has 
plenty of colour in his face, his hair and moustache 
are beautifully black, his figure is tall, and well pro- 
portioned ; but he has more the look of a theatrical 
gentleman than of a rich English baronet. As we 
may suppose, he is rather dressy, and cultivates the 
graces — or seems to do so — to a considerable extent. 
A more striking contrast than that between Sir Robert 
and his brother Frederick it is impossible to conceive. 
The latter is the very picture of a model red tapist. 
His light hair is brushed straight down over his pale 
face, his anns and legs are thin, his carriage is that of 
a bookworm. You may be sure that he has had very 
few wild oats to sow, and that, like most very good 
boys, he is somewhat inclined to be dull and tame. 
There is something feminine in the appearance of Mr. 
Frederick Peel. There is nothing of the kind in that 
of his brother, who seems to say, " I am all right ; I 
am the eldest son of the late Sir Robert Peel ; I am 
a brick, and a jolly good fellow — why should I torture 
my brains ? Why should I impair my constitution ? 
Why should I rise early, and sit vip late, to attain a 
position amongst a set of old fogies in the House of 
Commons, when my name is an open sesame to place 
and power, whenever I choose to trouble myself with 
such things V Thus Sir Robert seems to argue witli 



98 Official Liberals. 

himself as he walks into the lobby of the house^ with 
a great black stick in his hand, a camelia in his 
button-hole^, and his new hat placed jauntily on his 
head. 

Sir Robert Peel was born in London, 1822;, educated 
at HarroW;, was attache to the British Embassy at 
Madi'id from June^, 1844, to May, 1846, when he was 
appointed Secretary to the British Legation in Swit- 
zerland. He was first returned for Tamworth July, 
1850; he took his seat as a Conservative, though he 
voted for the ballot in 1853, and was and is in favour 
of free trade. As we have intimated, he generally 
votes on the Liberal side of the House, his attend- 
ance is very irregular, and his speeches few and far 
between. On one occasion when he addressed the 
House he nearly broke down. He has, however, 
mastered all that, and is now a speaker above the 
average. 

" WTien parsons drawl in one continuous hum, 
WIlo does not wish all baronets were dumb ?" 

Certainly, when Sir Robert is on his legs, such is not 
your wish. At first he forgot the great statesman's 
advice — " Young man, when you have nothing to say — 
say nothing ;" but he soon got over that weakness. 
Even now, led away by his love of fun, he makes occa- 
sional blunders. This was apparent not very long 
ago, when he drew a very ridiculous picture of a fat 
volunteer crawling on his belly, and shooting a cat, 
and thus endeavoured to stifle at its birth what has 



Charles Gilpin, Esq. 99 

proved to be the most eiFective and formidable move- 
ment of the time. Sir Robert has amply atoned for 
this by presenting £100 to the Stafford volunteers — 
as his subscription for four years to the maintenance 
of that worthy and effective corps. When he first 
spoke he had often a random way^ intimating very 
clearly that he hardly knew himself what he was 
talking about. I have often heard him miss the right 
word, using instead one resembling it in sound but 
totally different in sense, and all the while the House 
laughing quite as much at, as with, the hon. baronet, 
who pitched alike into his friends and foes ; and, as a 
wealthy baronet, with an hereditary title to statesman- 
ship, took a very independent position. Will he 
become an authority ? will he progress in his political 
career ? will he rise to what he, with his name, for- 
tune, and talents, might be ? These are questions to 
be asked by the people, not of Tamworth alone, but 
of the United Kingdom. There is no danger of his 
sinking into a Tcliinovick, as the Russians call their 
red tapists ; but his short career as the Irish Secretary 
does not raise any sanguine expectation as to his 
future. 

CHAKLES GILPIN, ESQ. 

(NoHTHAMPTON — GiLPiN, 2632; Henley, 2105; Merewetiier, 
C. 1620; Lendeick, C, 1378; Bkajdlaugii, 1066; Dr. 
Lee8, 485.) 

One of the oldest Nonconformist towns in England is 
Northampton. There Brown, the founder of the 

h2 



100 Official Liherah. 

Brownists, was born^ and in its gaol, after being im- 
prisoned upwards of thirty times, and after having 
been frightened out of Nonconformity, he died, infirm, 
fiery, old. The Puritan element was strong in North- 
ampton, and in the seventeenth century Baptists and 
Independents were in great force in the town. Dr. 
Doddridge settled there in 1729, and there, besides 
preaching himself, he trained up others to preach as 
well. Dr. Byland was the pastor of the old Baptist 
chapel, College-street. In the old unreformed Par- 
liament, and in the reign of the old Corporation, 
Spencer Perceval was M.P. for Northampton until he 
was assassinated. But better times came. Liberal 
principles grew and prospered. Dissenters became 
political, and then it was that Northampton ceased to 
return Tories, and sent to Westminster men who in 
Cromwell's time would have been denominated 
" thorough.'"" Of this class is Charles Gilpin, its 
present M.P. 

Mr. Gilpin is of a Quaker origin. He was born in 
1815 in Bristol. His uncle was the well-known and 
well-remembered Joseph Sturge of Birmingham, a 
worthy patriot, who was himself very near on more 
than one occasion becoming an M.P. The nephew 
began life as a traveller for a Manchester warehouse. 
I don't know whether he knew Cobden at that time ; 
— at any rate he breathed the Manchester air, which 
at the period referred to seems to have been remark- 
ably keen and salubrious, — air under the influence 



Charles Gilpin, Esq. 101 

of which Mr. Gilpin soon acquired hardihood and 
robustness. 

Joseph Sturge, as we all know^ was a gi'cat tem- 
perance reformer. His nephew became the same. 
The temperance movement did an immense amount of 
good. It not only taught the middle and lower 
classes of society to be temperate, it not only taught 
the working man how much better he could spend his 
money in buying books or furniture^ or in the main- 
tenance of his family, than in the consumption of 
vitriol gin and drugged and pernicious beer, — but it 
led to a quickening of intellect, especially in the 
direction of popular oratory, which was really asto- 
nishing and unexpected. The new movement re- 
quired new men to advocate and enforce its claims. 
In its infancy it had no great names to trust to. The 
clergy, whether of the Establishment or Dissent, 
looked coldly on ; the lawyer class, the only other 
class of trained speakers in the land, are never given 
to the unpaid advocacy of the platform; so in default 
the temperance cause had to form its own teachers 
and expounders. Men who had been saved by it from 
ruin in this world and the next, who had become 
decent and sober in consequence of it, learned in a 
forcible manner to declare the miseries they had 
escaped and the blessings they had obtained ; others 
who joined for the sake of example aud to do good, 
had also to become speech-makers ; — oratory was the 
rule, and silence the exception. If a cause is to be 



102 Official Liberals. 

deemed important according to the oratory it causes 
and excuses, then the temperance reformation is to be 
estimated very highly indeed. It was as a temperance 
orator that the late John Cassell first came before the 
public ; it was in the same capacity that John Bright 
made his debut, and the same may be said of Mr. 
Gilpin. In temperance societies he learned the use 
of the tongue. 

But the time had come for Mr, Gilpin to settle in 
the world. He married in 1840 a daughter of 
an inhabitant of Falmouth, and opened a book- 
seller^s shop in Bishopsgate-street. As a rule, political 
and philanthropic booksellers do much better than 
literary ones. I don^t fancy Godwin made a fortune, 
and Charles Knight is never tired of telling us his 
losses. The world went well with Gilpin, bookseller. 
The Friends are a specialty in the quarter in which 
he pitched his tent : close by is the Friends^ Meeting- 
house; in the neighbouring suburbs of Tottenham 
and Stoke Newington, in well-built and well-furnished 
houses, do they reside. Broad-street, where were the 
head-quarters of anti-slavery and other philanthropic 
societies ajBTected by Quakers, was but a few steps 
from his shop-door ; they all looked in at Bishopsgate- 
street to have a chat with Charles, and to buy their 
books and stationery there. He became useful to 
them all. He was the nephew of his uncle, and he 
shared in all his uncle's opinions. The way was thus 
prepared for him to take a part in public life. He 



Chariest Gilpin, Esq. 103 

was elected a Common Councilman. In Finsbury 
Chapel^ where once a year the friends of peace meet 
to proclaim its Divine mission to a stubborn and 
unbelicviunf race^ who go on quarrelling lud armiug 
as if peace principles had never been preached or 
peace congresses held, Gilpin's face on the platform 
was always expected, and in Exeter Hall his voice had 
also been raised. Perhaps in our time this sort of 
thing has been a little overdone, — people have tired of 
stump oratoiy, and of reverend gentlemen inculcating 
the humanities ; but in the case of Mr. Gilpin no 
feeling of that kind was created It was clear that 
his advocacy was that of a sincere and enlightened 
citizen, who had no personal ends or private ambition 
to gratify. 

At this time a movement was set on foot which 
tended further to bring Mr. Gilpin before the public. 
In Birmingham a James Taylor, jun., a plain, un- 
lettered man, had made the wonderful discovery, that 
the working man might become a freeholder, and have 
a stake in the country if he, instead of depositing his 
money with the publican, invested it in a freehold 
land society. The idea took wonderfully ; the plan 
was for a number of men to join together, and with 
their united subscriptions purchase an estate, which 
was afterwards cut up into forty-shilling freeholds, 
and always sold at a profit. In a little while these 
societies extended all over tlie country, and not only 
])Iaccd many of the working classes on the register, 



104 OjHicial Liberals. 

but put a good deal of money into tlieir pockets as 
well. The Conservatives were alarmed : they declared 
the new system was unconstitutional ; and then did 
as people often do who oppose vehemently a novelty 
or an innovation — adopted it themselves. Of the 
societies formed on this plan^ by far the largest was 
the National Freehold Land Society in Moorgate- 
street^ of which Mr. Cobden was, I believe, a trustee, 
and with which Mr. Grilpin was connected from the 
commencement. It flourished speedily ; it was con- 
ducted on sound business principles, and with its suc- 
cess Mr. Gilpin is intimately connected, for from the 
first he worked heartily in its favour ; and, when it 
had become a giant, and was found to require time 
and talent, as a paid director Mr. Gilpin retired from 
his own business, and devoted himself to the develop- 
ment of what has come to be the greatest land society 
of our age. Here he found ample scope for his busi- 
ness talents and tact; here, also, he became known 
and in request as a director. It is not true that all 
his eiforts in this way have been successful. One 
honest director is of no avail where there are others, 
forming the majority, dishonest, or careless, or remiss. 
It is in vain that you war against the conditions of 
success. In these days of limited liability companies 
many have come to grief in spite of a good name or 
two, and among the names attached to such I have 
known many as honourable as any in the City of 
London. But I am not in a position here to chronicle 



CJiarles Gilpin, Esq. 105 

Mr. Gilpin's labours in connection with companies ; I 
must not omit, liowever_, liis connection with the Na- 
tional Provident Institution^ one of the most successful 
of its class. 

By this time ]Mr. Gilpin was known as a well-tried 
man, as one whose time and best energies were freely 
given to the cause of the people. Shoemakers are 
always a keen, intelligent class of men. Northampton 
is full of such (it finds Australia in boots and shoes) ; 
and in 1857 the shoemakers and Dissenters of North- 
ampton returned Mr. Gilpin to Parliament, where he 
took his seat, and fought side by side with his friends 
Cobden and Bright. In 1850 he became Secretary of 
the Poor-law Board. About that time Lord Palmcr- 
ston Avas becoming sensible of the blunder made by 
the "Whigs in always dividing office amongst them- 
selves. On one occasion, we are told, when Mr. Brand 
was announcing to the House the formation of a new 
Ministry, and was going through the routine observed 
on such occasions, the late Sir James Graham was 
heard to exclaim, ^' What ! another peer V Sir James 
evidently being of the opinion that you might have 
too much of a good thing. Lord Palmerston was 
properly desirous to get a little of the popular element 
in his ^Ministry, and therefore he made the ofier, which 
INIr. Gilpin accepted; but the position was not a 
l)leasant one. Mr. Gilpin was not a free man. It is 
understood that he was not to be allowed any advo- 
cacy of his own peculiar opinions, except those rela- 



106 Official Liberals. 

ting to the abolition of capital punishment^ and his 
situation was unpleasant to his constituents^ who had 
no idea of returning a dumb dog^ or a silent defender 
of the Ministry of the day. Mr. Gilpin acted wisely. 
He retired from office in 1865, and now, freed from 
its trammels, Northampton will expect her Member 
to do his duty. As Secretary of the Poor-law Board_, 
he had no chance of doing so. It is something to 
be of the Cabinet and to mould the policy of the na- 
tion, but it is a poor thing (even if you get £1000 
a-year for doing it) to be confined, as far as regards 
Parliamentary utterance and action, to making a 
House and cheering the Premier. 

The personal appearance of Mr. Gilpin is by no 
means remarkable. He is invariably dressed in sober 
black, aud is a plain, unpretending man, about six 
feet high, muscular-looking, and not over-fat. As a 
speaker, he is clear and sensible, aiming at perspicuity 
rather than effect. By his friends he is much esteemed 
for his kindness and readiness to as'^ist or advise, and 
in public opinion he holds a place such as might well 
satisfy a more ambitious man, and of which, when a 
Manchester bagman, he could have little dreamt. 

THE RIGHT HON. HENRY BRAND. 

(Cambridgeshike — Lord G. Manners, C, 8998 ; Lord Royston, 
C, 3874; Rt. Hon. Henry Brand, 3310; Mr. Richard 
YotJNG, 3290.) 

Once, and once only, Mr. Gladstone was known to 

speak against time. The occasion was in the debate 



The Bt. Hon. Henry Brand. 107 

on tlie tliirJ reading of the bill for tlie Repeal of the 
Paper Duty. All at once it became apparent to the 
Government that they were in danger ; by outward 
signs and symptoms it was made manifest to the most 
obtuse of them that their foes were more numerous 
thau their friends^ and that a division under such cir- 
cumstances would be fatal. Lord Palmerston, who 
had a happy faculty of sleeping all the evening like 
Lord iNorth_, was wide awake ; Lord John Russell 
displayed anxiety ; Mr. Gibson^ it was very evident, 
was ill at ease, as were the rest of the gentlemen who 
generally sit in very ungraceful postures on the Trea- 
sury Bench. To be beaten was the destruction of the 
Palmerston Administration ; destruction of that ad- 
ministration was to every individual member of it, for 
a longer or shorter interval of time — perhaps for ever 
— loss of place ; and loss of place means loss of in- 
fluence — loss of rank — loss of salary — loss of every- 
thing the politician strives to gain. In such circum- 
stances there is nothing like a Fabian policy, and 
there is nothing more desirable than a long speech. 
The man who speaks longest speaks best. Happily, 
Mr. Gladstone was on his legs, and there is no man 
who has such a wonderful faculty of speaking as him- 
self, and on the occasion to which I refer the hon. 
gentleman very wisely exerted that faculty to the 
utmost. He (says an eye-witness) started vigorously 
enough, dashed with impetuous brevity through a 
great part of the subject, on which he might have 



108 Official LileraU. 

advantageously insisted ; but all of a sudden he began 
to wind round and rounds over and over again came 
the same arguments in almost the same words^ and 
for once the Chancellor of the Exchequer was — not 
almostj but I should say quite — prosy. To an habitue 
of the HonsCj however^ the cause was obvious. The 
Treasury Whipper-in was seen flitting about in and 
out^ backwards and forwards^ to the Treasury Bench, 
with an anxious and perturbed aspect of countenance. 
Sir Wm. Hayter, too^ was moving about very much 
as he used to do when he was in office — in fact, he 
was evidently imitating the retired tallow-chandler, 
who used to go down to the shop on melting days ; 
while ever and anon white-waistcoated gentlemen, 
evidently dragged from the opera or evening parties, 
were silently filling the ministerial benches. The 
whip was severe and unrelenting. However_, at last 
the Treasury Whipper-in entered the House, and sat 
down upon the Treasury Bench with an air of com- 
placent satisfaction — the thing was done — narrowly, 
but effectually ; and then the Chancellor of the Ex- 
chequer sat down also. In spite of Mr. Disraeli^s 
reply, all ground of anxiety had been removed, and 
the ministry had a majority — not a large one, but a 
majority, when they were on the verge of defeat. 
How was it that this defeat was averted, that the 
ministry were saved, that the bill for the Repeal of 
the Paper Duty was carried ? The answer is — by the 
exertions of the Treasury Whipper-in. 



The Bt. Hon. Henry Brand. 109 

It was once my good fortune to behold Lord John 
Russell smile and carry on a friendly conversation on 
the Government benches of the British House of Com- 
mons. Generally his lordship is cold and dignified in 
his demeanour, as becomes a man who is part and 
parcel of that wonderful machine — the British Consti- 
tution. The individual with whom he was conversing 
was rather under the average size, of slim build, very 
plainly dressed, and with one of those fresh, ruddy, 
whiskerless faces which make even an old man look 
young. It was clear that he was a good Whig, and 
of an old family, otherwise Lord John would have been 
a little less friendly. It was also clear that he was in 
office, or he would not have been sitting by the side of 
premiers and Chancellors of the Exchequer ; and yet 
his was not a face familiar to me as a man who had 
won his position by any talent, oratorical or adminis- 
trative, of his own. The name of the gentleman was 
Brand. A reference to " Dod""^ informed me that he 
Avas the second son of the twentieth Baron Dacre ; 
that he was private secretary to Sir George Grey ; 
that he was " averse to large organic changes ;" that 
he was returned for Lewes for the first time in 1852 -, 
and that on the formation of the Palmerston Cabinet 
he was promoted to the office held so long and ably by 
Sir William Goodenough Haytcr. After all, the 
general reader is still in the dark with regard to 
Mr. Brand. He says to me, " Here is a man, born in 
181 i, in the prime of life, not memorable for any 



1 i Official Liberals. 



great work or act, yet you give him a niche in your 
gallery of modern statesmen. How is this ? What 
you quote from ' Dod^ in no way enlightens me" 
Wait awhile, my anxious inquirer. I frankly confess 
that, after all, you are very little the wiser when I 
give you Mr. Dod^s facts. There is a society called the 
Tract Society — of the merits or demerits of which it is 
not for me to speak here — the travelling agent of that 
society was an immensely stout man. On one occa- 
sion that agent called at a clergyman^s house in a pro- 
vincial town. The clergyman^s daughter ran laughing 
into her father^s study, '' Papa, here^s the Tract 
Society come."^ In the same way Mr. Brand was 
that awful personage — the British Parliamentary 
System. He smiled, and you were returned for Rotten- 
borough, and the newspapers trumpeted the glorious 
triumph of liberal principles. He frowned, and you 
were unseated for bribery and corruption. On good 
terms with Mr. Brand, and you were elected into the 
Reform Club -, you got that little place in the Circum- 
locution-office for your son ; your wife had a ticket for 
one of Lady Palmerston^s brilliant assemblies. When 
the Duke of Wellington said in the excitement occa- 
sioned by the passing of the Reform Bill, he did not 
see how the king^s government could be carried on, 
he forgot the Treasury Whipper-in. By his aid 
nothing is easier. Sir W. Hayier, Mr. Brandos pre- 
decessor, was a model in this respect, and stUl, I 
think, does a good deal of amateur whipping-in. If 



The Bf. Hon. Henry Brand. Ill 

I could catch him a moment I would point him out. 
Here he is. " ^Yhat, by the doorV' No, he is in the 
lobby ; no, he is gone into the House ; no, he is out. 
Ah ! here he comes ; but you can^t see him, for he is 
in the midst of a group. But see ! he has stepped on 
one side to read a note. That is he — that sharp- 
featured, active-looking man ! a cross, as it were, be- 
tween a rollicking Irishman and an English merchant, 
all the shrewdness of the one and the fun of the 
other ; in person square-built and not very tall, but 
ever agile, and seemingly a model of the art of per- 
petual motion. In the same way Mr. Erand was 
ah\ ays on duty. You would see him in the lobby before 
the Speaker was at prayers ; after the Speaker had done 
his prayers ; long after the gas had been turned on, 
far into the nighty ofttimes far into the early morn. 
Mr. Brand dwelt in the lobby. It Avas not known that 
he slept anywhere, with the exception of forty winks 
on the Treasury benches, nor that he partook of 
meals except during the parliamentary recess. He 
said to one, " Come," and he came — to another, 
" Go," and he went. He was friendly with every one, 
and managed to talk to a dozen people at once. He 
held one by the button, he administered to another a 
dig in the ribs, at another he winked, another he 
accosted in a free and easy manner. He slapped 
peers on the back, and shook hands even with Irish 
M.P.^s. His duty was, as Canning — no fourth-rate 
man, as a contemporary ludicrously calls him — said, 



112 Official Lib er ah. 

" to make a House, and keep a House, and ckeer the 
minister/' On one occasion Canning wrote : — 

" Cheer him. as his andience flag, 
Brother Hiley, Brother Bragge, 
Cheer him as he hobbles vilely, 
Brother Bragge, and Brother Hiley." 

Brothers Bragge and Hiley were the Treasury Whip- 
pers-in of their day. The Whipper-in is, perhaps, the 
most powerful man in the House of Commons. Let 
him over-sleep himself — let him have a fit of indiges- 
tion — let him be laid up with the gout — and immedi- 
ately the Liberal cabinet is in extremis, and the nation' 
is plunged into all the horrors of a crisis. How comes 
this about ? you very naturally ask. You tell me you 
do not hear of Mr. Brand's eloquence ; you do not see 
his name in Hansard ; it does not seem to you that he 
shines in debate. Well, the answer to this question 
will let you into one of the secrets of the British con- 
stitution — a secret that you will not discover, however 
attentively you may study Blackstone or De Lolme. 
Gentle reader, you cannot be so green as to suppose 
that, in any country under the sun, men are guided 
to their conclusions simply by means of the debates of 
public assemblies ; you cannot be so green even as to 
believe that these discussions have anything to do with 
the subsequent decision. Pre-eminently in the British 
House of Commons this is not the case, and the con- 
sequence is that the debate does not influence the 
decision^ but is merely the apology for it. The 



77/6^ Bt. Hon. Henry Brand. 113 

premier makes liis sjjcccli; and lie leaves his Wliippcr-in 
to make up the majority that is to keep the Ministry 
in office. Mr. Brand was the INIinisterial Whipper-in ; 
hence it is that he was always in the lobby finding 
pairs — laying hold of this member — preventing that 
one from escaping ; and that his means of communi- 
cation reached to the Clubs, to the Opera, as well as to 
the smoking-room and library of the House of 
Commons. The whip extends over Europe. On one 
occasion^ I belicA'C, Sir Robert PeePs Administration 
was saved by one vote^ and that the vote of a member 
who had travelled from the interior of the Continent 
obedient to the summons of the whip. The fact is, 
we arc governed by the whip ; nor could it well be 
otherwise if we are to have government by means of 
party; and Parliamentary government means party 
government. In the theory of the Constitution 
Cave AduUams have no place. Mr. Disraeli, in his 
Life of Lord George Bentinck, speaks of the creation of 
a third political party as '' a result at all times and 
under any circumstances difficult to achieve, and which 
had failed even under the auspices of accomplished and 
experienced statesmen." Sir Robert Peel understood 
this — that is, in other words, the hon. baronet felt that 
in vain he held office if his party would not respond 
to the whip. The French Republicans failed because 
they could not understand this, and for a similar 
reason the Metropolitan Board of Works, and the re- 
spectable parish vestries of St. Pancras or j\Iarylcbouc, 

I 



114 Official Liberals, 

seem in a disorganized and cliaotic state^ and succeed 
in doing so little business. During tlie recent 
Reform Debates more than one effort was made to 
count out the House of CommonS;, and yet let there 
be anything supremely unimportant of a personal 
nature^, such as that squabble between Messrs. Horsman 
and Walters^ and the House is crammed in every part. 
When a discussion respecting our one hundred and 
fifty millions of Indian subjects is raised^ I have often 
seen less than forty members present. One advantage 
of this is that even the dullest dog in the House gets 
his say, for if the House be thin — and why should any 
sane man be compelled to listen to a lawyer talking 
for promotion^ or to a borough representative airing 
the dictionary for the exclusive benefit of his own con- 
stituents ? — the Whipper-in knows where all his men 
are, and will bring them up when the division bell 
rings and the serious business of the evening has com- 
menced. Without the so-called whip, Parliamentary 
government is almost an impossibility — the assembly, 
with its eternal talk, would fall into contempt, and all 
power would pass into the hands of the Crown. Make 
the experiment on a small scale — get a hundred honest, 
intelligent men together — each man with a theory of 
his own and a grievance, and what would be the 
result? Why, that nothing whatever could be done. 
There are votes taken every night in which the 
majorfty of members have no earthly interest ; yet 
these votes are essential to the carrying on of the 



The Rt. Hon. Henri/ Brand. 115 

Queen's Government. Now, in tlie House of Commons, 
by means of the party and the whip, actually some 
progi'ess is made. Here, in England, so much 
business is taken off by the municipalities, that our 
Parliament is far less laden with details than was the 
French Assembly ; yet, if all our legislators were 
honest, independent, crotchety, disdainful of party 
and disobedient to this influence, we should split 
up into helplessness and fatuity. It is the appli- 
cation of the whip that makes the House of Commons 
a working assembly, and preserves us fi'om the horrors 
of despotism. 

Dreamers and theorists — political babes and suck- 
lings — may tell me that a Whipper-in is the result of 
parliamentary corruption — that w^e should be better 
■without him — that such as he are a fearful sign of the 
times ; but if jobs must be done — if little arrange- 
ments must be made — if, in other words, people re- 
quire to be looked after, the Whipper-in is the man to 
do it. Parliament is a self-seeking assembly, and to 
buy every man at his own valuation would be evidently 
a bad bargain for the people. Indeed, the Whipper-in 
is most useful to his party. He will supply Liberal 
candidates to any amount ; he will judiciously distri- 
bute the Government advertisements and patronage ; 
he will make the needful arrangements with the Oppo- 
sition as to the public business ; he will reconcile un- 
easy consciences to the unpleasant task of renouncing 
in Parliament the pledges they made when out. I 



116 Official Liberals. 

confess — uuflinching patriot thougli I be — my mouth 
waters as I think of the good things the Whipper-in 
has at his disposal ; and I rush away from the lobby 
exclaiming, " Lead me not into temptation ; but 
deliver me from evil." 



THE RT. HON. JOHN BRIGHT. 

(BlRMDIGHAM — BRIGHT, 14,569 ; DiXON, 15,163 ; MUNTZ, 14,864; 

LoYD, C, 8513 ; Evans, C, 6926.) 

Some few years back, while the Anti-Corn-Law 
agitation was yet in its infancy, and being fought 
with a fierceness almost incredible in these more 
moderate days, when in agricultural circles no lan- 
guage was considered too contemptuous for its sup- 
porters, in a small village in one of the midland 
counties an unknown individual was delivering an 
address on the all-absorbing theme. He was dressed 
in black, and his coat was of that peculiar cut con- 
sidered by the worthy disciples of George Fox — alas ! 
how falsely — as a standing protest against the fashions 
of the world. The lectm-er was young, square built, 
and muscular, with a broad face and forehead, with a 
fresh complexion, with " mild blue eyes^"" like those of 
the late Russian Nicholas, but nevertheless, with a 
general expression quite sufficiently decided and severe. 
As an orator the man did not shine. His voice was 
good, though somewhat harsh; his manner was awk- 
ward, as is the custom of the country, and the sen- 



The m. Hon. John Briglit. 117 

tcnccs came out of his moutli loose, naked, and ill- 
form cd. lie was not master of tlie situation, yet lie 
■nantcd not confidence, nor matter, nor words. Practice 
it Avas clear was all that he required. The orator felt 
this himself. He told his audience that he was learn- 
ing to speak ujion the question, and that he would 
succeed in time. That he did learn, that he did succeed, 
is obvious when I mention the fact that the sj^caker 
was no other than John Bright, M.P. for Birmingham. 
It is one of the effects of a popular agitation that it 
elevates for a time into equal importance the true man 
and the false. Both alike are strong in the exposure 
of practical anomalies or injustice — strong in the 
power of uttering for the dumb multitude what it 
travails in agony to declare — strong in the sweet 
voices of the sovran mob. The hour makes the man. 
In its tumult, and excitement, and uproar, like the 
spectres on the Brocken, he seems twice his ordinary 
size. Poor, pitiful, small, weak-minded creature 
though he be, for a time he wields a giant^s power, 
and speaks with a giant's voice. For a time, of each 
tribune of the people it is emphatically declared — 

" In liiin Demosthenes is heard again, 
Liberty taught him her Athenian strain." 

The Sacheverells, the Lord George Gordons, the 
Wilkses, the Orator Hunts, the Feargus O'Connors and 
Daniel O'Connells, have each seemed to the people, 
delirious with the intoxication of the time, what Ste- 
phano seemed to Caliban, a very god. The hour past. 



118 Official Liberals. 

tlie tumult calmed^ the angry voices stilled, men^s 
eyes opened, the dilated demagogue dwindles into his 
ordinary insignificance. Alas ! poor Yorick, where be 
his jibes and gibberings ? It is a painful process, this 
state of collapse. To have been floated into public life 
on a public agitation, and to continue to float when 
that agitation has ceased, when the political world is 
dull as the weeds that rot on Lethe's shore ; to play 
Othello when Othello's occupation is gone, requires an 
unusually strong brain and brave heart. Mr. Bright 
has gone through all this and succeeded ; nay^ more, 
has triumphed, and by this triumph has placed, himself 
foremost among the statesmen of the age. 

I scarce believe, with Robert Owen and the moderns, 
that all men are equal, and that the only difference 
between a great man and a little man is that one is 
born on a pedestal and that the other is not. Still it 
is a great advantage to be born on a pedestal. With 
an infatuation unparalleled amongst savages and in- 
credible in a people who profess to believe the Bible, 
we have so crippled the democracy, that when it enters 
into the arena with aristocracy it does so at tremendous 
odds. To attain his position John Bright has injured 
his health and shortened his days. Men like Lord John 
Russell and Viscount Palmerston attain a superior 
position by just sufficient healthy labour to lengthen 
theirs. They are born on the pedestal, and not placed 
there by merits of their own. Few of our noble states- 
men would have been there unless born there. Either 



The Bf. Hon. Johi BrigU. 119 

the energy, or the timej or the patience, or the talent 
to secure a position would have been -wanting. To 
emerge from the mob, to rise from the respectable dead 
level of the Smiths, Browns, Joneses, and Robinsons, 
to get the adA'antage over them by the head and 
shoulders, is a Herculean task. In the first place, the 
men M'ho are on the pedestal look on contemptuously if 
you try to put yourself on an equality with them. In the 
second place, the Smiths, Browns, Joneses, and Robin- 
sons will do all that they can to prevent your achiev- 
ing a higher position than themselves. The very class 
for whom you labour will deem you impertinent, and 
damn you with faint praise. Only a remarkable man 
could thus shake off all obstacles and climb the steep 

" Wliere Fame's proud temple sliines afar." 
"Whatever may be the feeling out of doors, it will not 
be denied that John Bright has succeeded in doing this 
in the House of Commons and amongst his peers. No 
one ever heard him in Parliament without feeling that 
he is a power in that House ; yet such a position was 
one no one would have prophesied for him a few years 
since. Everything was against him when he was first 
returned as member for Durham. All his antecedents 
were precisely those most calculated to excite opposi- 
tion and contempt. He Avas not merely not a landlord, 
but he was a cotton lord. He was not merely not of the 
Church of England, but of the church whose harmless 
peculiarities have been more laughed at than its virtues 
admired. He was not merely one of the Anti-Corn- 



l.:20 Official Liberals. 

Law League^ but one of its greatest men. He was not 
merely at the head of an agitation thoronglily revolu- 
tionary, as it seemed to its opponents, but lie was one 
of those who let it be clearly understood that that agi- 
tation, so far from being final, was but the means to an 
end. He not only had no respect for Parliamentary 
shams and conventionalities, but he expressed that 
contempt in a manner the most unpalatable and undis- 
guised. Nevertheless it was not long ere he compelled 
the House to do homage to his honesty and strength. 
At first it rebelled — it groaned when he got up — it 
emptied itself when he spoke ; but the House, if it 
looks kindly on aristocratic imbecility, will not long 
refuse to sanction democratic capacity and pluck. The 
House is generous, and has a thorough appreciation of 
a MAN ; and the result is, that now, as far as it is con- 
cerned, Mr. Bright has nothing to fear. He may 
damage himself out of doors ; he may offend a people 
warlike in its instinct in spite of cotton-growing Man- 
chester; he may alienate the cultivated mind of the 
country by his grovelling theory of a nation^s Hfe ; he 
may arouse, and justly, the hostility of the press, by 
the degrading mission which he would chalk out for 
it ; he may make people very angry by his praise of 
the Emperor Napoleon and his readiness to sacrifice 
Savoy ; but he has taken honours in the senate, and 
there his position is secure. 

How is this ? In London generally Mr. Bright is 
not a popular man. In what is considered good so- 



Tlie m. Hon. John BrifjhL Vl\ 

cicty it is hinted that he is a demagogue, and that liis 
dangerous mission is to set the lower classes against 
the upper ones. People tell you that on the platform 
]\Ir. Bright is a very different and much bolder man 
than on the floor of St, Stephen^s — a criticism which, 
however, may be passed on every public man, inasmuch 
as platform speaking aims at creating popular en- 
thusiasm, while oratory in the House of Commons is 
of a more business-like and practical character. It is 
undeniable, however, that at certain intervals of time 
the opinions of Mr, Bright are those of a minority. 
His peace \dews are decidedly at a discount. His devo- 
tion to the material interests of the nation is carried to 
an extreme, and is somewhat repulsive to those who 
believe that man does not live by bread alone. His 
pugnacity, reminding one of the celebrated remark of 
the late Lord George Bentinck, that if he were not a 
Quaker he would be a prize-fighter, has been an of- 
fence to the many who are prone to sing : — 

" Let us alone ; wtat pleasure can we have 
To war with, evil ? Is there any peace 
In ever climbing- up the climbing wave ?" 

To all such, — to all who believe in the traditions of 
the past, — to all who would rather endure a wrong 
than fight with it, — to all who would take the world 
as they find it, and only smile when told that their 
idols are wind-bags which collapse only with the 
prick of a pin, — Mr. Bright is a constant source of un- 
easiness and irritation. Now, in London especially 



122 Official Liberals. 

these classes are numerous. London people are well- 
to-do : tliej soon make money ; they soon rise to the 
dignity of a brougham and a country-house ; they soon 
learn to give good dinners and to eat them. And men 
in this position^ when they have done their day's busi- 
ness in the City, only desire ease and rest out of busi- 
ness hours. In the provinces it is different ; there 
Paterfamilias^ as soon as he puts up his shutters^ or 
locks up his warehouse,, is sure to have some philan- 
thropic^ or religious^ or political employment; a Lon- 
don political lecturer is coming, and he must take the 
chair ; or a Ragged School is to be formed, and he is 
to be the Treasurer ; or a Mechanics^ Institution is in 
difficulties, and he has to show how the requisite funds 
are to be obtained. These are the men who rally round 
John Bright ; but they are scarce in London^ and yet 
John Bright, their representative^ is honoured in the 
House of Commons. Why ? The answer is soon given. 
Come with me into the Strangers' Gallery, and look 
hard on your left. About the middle of the third 
bench of the gangway you see a vigorous -looking man 
in black. What a contrast he presents to the mass 
around ! Lord Bacon deemed himself ancient when he 
was thirty-one. Mr. Bright is, then, more than ancient, 
but he is in the prime of life nevertheless. The debate 
has been drawing its slow length along, and weariness 
is on every face. Small men have been on their legs. 
The Boeotians — the lordlings whose misfortune it is to 
misrepresent counties, and others — have been uttering 



The lif. Hon. Join Brif/ht. 1.Q3 

scntimcuts cliildisli and commonplace ; or an official 
nnderling, with languid oratory^ and much allusion 
to bluc-booksj has essayed to show that everything 
governmental is as it ought to be^ that the right man is 
in the right place^ and that everything is for the best ; 
or with the usual nonchalant air, has contended that no 
great harm has been done, and that if there had it did 
aiot matter much. Up rises Mr. Bright, with a voice 
something of a scream, and rushes into the very heart 
of the subject — scornfully tossing on one side, as irre- 
levant, the platitudes of preceding speakers. The 
question, whatever it may be, is taken up manfully 
and boldly. There is no display of fine learning — no 
Latin quotation — no subtle disquisition — no elaborated 
climax — no polished peroration. There is no attempt 
to evade the difficulties of the question; on the con- 
trary, the speaker seems to delight in them, as an 
Irishman will fight for fun. He states them in all 
their naked literalness, and wrestles with them as an 
intellectual athlete. No one can pretend Mr. Bright is 
always in the right ; sometimes he must be wrong. 
To most of us it seems that the Manchester policy as 
regards peace and war is a policy which, as Mr. Dis- 
raeli truly remarked, would degrade our ancient mo- 
narchy into a third-rate republic — a policy repugnant 
to the national pride and sense of honour — a policy 
oblivious of glorious traditions and ancient fame. But 
!Mr. Bright is in earnest — he means what he says ; you 
sec that the speaker has heart as well as brain^ and 



124 Official Lib erals. 

on he goes^ right to the mark^ uttering honestly and 
plainly his thoughts^ calling a spade a spade^ however 
contrary that may be to parliamentary etiquette and 
usage. There are times when he attempts a loftier 
strain^ when he becomes eloquent^ and appeals to the 
consciences of men of all parties_, and carries with him 
the hearts of all. At such times Mr. Bright's earnest- 
ness is overpowering. You cannot resist its impetuous 
course^ and the House^ that feels rightly,, if it votes 
wrongly^ is completely subdued. On more than one 
occasion^ when Mr. Bright has risen to speak^ has there 
been 

" Silence, deep as death, 
And the boldest held his breath 
For a time." 

This was especially apparent a few years since, 
during the Indian debates. I never heard more 
eflFective speeches delivered by any man, and I think 
the general opinion coincided with my own. Mr. 
Bright was well up in his subject. India can produce 
cotton. Manchester needs cotton. Hence it was Mr. 
Bright spoke with such vehemence, and passion, and 
power. How great the contrast between a modern. 
House of Commons and an ancient one — between 
Bright and Burke ! It was an ancient djoiasty over- 
thrown ; an ancient people oppressed ; a multitude 
numerous as the sands upon the sea-shore, wasting 
away beneath British injustice ; another A^erres harass- 
ing a wasted Sicily, that excited the imagination 



The Bt. Eon. John Bright. 1:25 

and fired the heart of INtr. Burke. It was because a 
splendid opportunity of growing cotton for Manchester 
was lost, that Mr. Bright bore down upon the govern- 
ment with resistless force. The stand-point of the one 
was chivalrous and classic, of the other modern and 
commercial. Sneer at it as selfish if you will, but is 
it not the truer one of the two ? All men act from 
selfish motives, — the Christian who flies from the wrath 
to come, as much as the spendthrift Avho squanders, or 
the miser who saves. I read lately the report oi' a sermon 
preached at the consecration of Tiptree Heath Church 
by a distinguished divine. The Doctor's aim was to show 
that if a nation feared the Lord it would prosper, and 
hence the propriety of the nation supporting a religious 
establishment. Give your money to the Almighty 
because He will pay it you back with interest. Such 
is the modern gospel. If it be true that we can only 
attain to an enlightened selfishness at the best ; and if 
it be true, as Mr. Bright believes, that the Manchester 
policy as regards India would bring with it an immense 
amount of good ; it, at any rate, must not be despised 
for its selfishness, and surely, at any rate, may chal- 
lenge a comparison with the Derby policy, or the 
Palmerston policy, or that of the "Whigs. As regards 
India, it is clear that had the Bright policy prevailed 
we should have had no Indian mutiny. 

" Mr. Bright," says Mr. G. 11. Francis, in his careful 
estimate of the orators of the age, " may be said to 
have been dragged upwards by Mr. Cobdcn in hi.s 



126 Official Liberals. 

rapid and remarkable ascent to fame and notoriety. 
Had he been left to pursue his path alone it is more 
than probable that he would never have emerged from 
the dead level of society, or that if he had attained 
any eminence at all, it would have been to achieve a 
distinction not more illustrious than that of the most 
noisy and arrogant orator of a parish vestry, in whom 
strength of lungs and an indomitable determination not 
to be outbuUied are the most prominent qualifications/^ 
How foolish all this seems_, read by the light of the 
present -, but when Mr. Francis wrote, such was the 
general feeling. And now, like another Warwick, Mr. 
Bright stands, — a setter up or puller down of kings. 
When Lord Derby is in office the Whigs are indignant, 
and declare that he has formed an unnatural alliance 
with Mr. Bright. When he supports Lord John 
Russell, the Conservatives hint at another Lichfield 
compact. Independent Radicals, men whose self-love 
suggests leadership, intimate that they differ strongly 
from the member for Birmingham. Yet I am much 
mistaken if that honourable gentleman do not act a 
conspicuous part in the House for many years to come. 
As old statesmen pass away — as old prejudices are 
forgotten — as Mr. Bright himself mellows with years — 
as his views form with growing experience, leadership 
and office must fall to his lot. His speeches during 
the late Reform debates were models, whether as 
regards force of argument or oratorical beauty and 
power. Even by this time is his great heresy, during 



The m. Hon. John Bright. 127 

the Crimean War^ forgotten if not forgiven. Wise 
men now fail to perceive that for the anxiety then 
endured — for the treasure then wasted — for the blood 
then spilt as water — for the heroism then displayed 
— for the national enthusiasm then ereated^ we have 
received an adequate result. 

The Times is occasionally very angry with Mr. 
Bright, yet he has never said harder things of the 
aristocracy and the British Constitution than the Times. 
Hear our officers on the army and navy. According to 
them our rulers are blindj and the country is going head- 
long to the devil. It was only the other day that a mili- 
tary man assured us that the most conservative of officers 
were fast becoming radicals in consequence of their dis- 
gust at the waste and mismanagement in high quarters. 
If ]\Ir. Bright's object be a good one, let him have the 
same licence allowed to others. Public agitation re- 
quires enthusiasm, and exaggeration is the necessary 
result. All members of parliament on the platform 
speak in a diflFerent manner to what they do in the 
House, and this is still more the case with the 
Radical Reformer, since on the platform he pub- 
lishes his extreme views, but in the House of 
Commons, where there is a majority against him, 
he is compelled to take Avhat he can get. It is 
clear, for some time to come there must be poli- 
tical agitation out of doors. If it be true that 
in the counties the tenant farmers are under the influ- 
ence of their landlords ; or as Lord Derby, when Lord 



128 Official Liberals. 

Stanley^ said, you can always tell tlie politics of the 

representative of a county if you know the politics of 

the leading landlords, — if our borough constituencies 

be many of them venal and corrupt, he who would 

endeavour to wipe away from us this reproach and 

shame, and advocates reform, is acting a patriot^s 

part; and the men who stand by what they call the 

British Constitution, who shut their eyes to its defects, 

who cry "^ Esto perpetua,^^ are the real fomentors of 

class disunion and revolution. Can any one doubt 

that the majority of men, whether in the House of 

Commons or elsewhere, act from interested motives ? 

If so, why should Mr. Bright be sent to Coventry for 

saying so ? Mr. Bright, sorrowing from the grave of 

a beloved wife, was urged by his frieud Mr. Cobden 

into the political arena — not to forget his grief, but 

to gain a solace for it by his splendid exertions for the 

happiness and welfare of the poor. He represents a 

class who have been denied their rightful position in 

politics, to whom it is of actual consequence that 

taxation be lightened and commerce freed — a class to 

whom Great Britain must look more and more to 

find employment and sustenance for her swarming 

sons. The charge of self-interest sometimes brought 

against him comes with an ill grace from lawyers who 

move heaven and earth to prevent law-reform, or from 

landlords who sing with might and main, 

" Let learning, laws, and commerce die, 
But give us back our old uobility." 



The Bf. Hon. JoJni Bright. 129 

The perpetual abuse of Mr. Bright in some quarters 
is ungenerous. Men who are dumb in his presence 
are ready enough to bark behind his back. However, 
from a hostile press and hostile orators, Mr. Bright, if 
he be wise, will learn somewhat. " Caius Gracchus," 
writes old Plutarch, " was rough and impetuous, and 
it often happened that in his harangues he was carried 
away by passion, contrary to his judgment, and his 
voice became shrill, and he fell to abuse, and grew 
confused in his discourse. To remedy this fault he 
employed Licinius, a well-educated slave, who used to 
stand behind him when he was speaking, with a musi- 
cal instrument, such as is used as an accompaniment 
to singing, and whenever he observed that the voice 
of Caius was becoming harsh and broken through pas- 
sion, he would produce a soft note, upon which Caius 
would immediately moderate his voice and become 
calm.^' Our Caius may learn a lesson from him of 
Rome. 




CHAPTER IV. 

mDEPENDEIs'T LIBEEALS. 

JACOB BRIGHTj ESQ, 

(Manchestee, — Bazley, 14,192 ; Bkight, 13,514; Jones, 10,662 ; 
Henry, 6236 ; Biely, C, 15,486 ; Hoare, 0., 12,684.) 

SHORT wliile since a thrill of joy ran 
through the land when it was found that 
Manchester, after a temporary flirtation with 
another party, had been consistent with the policy 
associated all the world over with her name, 
and had, by an enormous majority (8260 to 6409 
polled by Mr. Bennett and 642 by Mr. Mitchell 
Henry), returned to Parliament Mr. Jacob Bright, 
the brother of England's gi'eatest orator, in preference 
to a mild Liberal and a Conservative nobody. When 
the new Member took his seat, as we happened to 
be in the House at the time, we will describe the 
ceremony for the benefit of our readers. About 
five minutes to four the Speaker entered the House, 
and, standing at the table, not in his chair of state, 
listened while the Chaplain read the prayers. This 
ceremony being over, the Speaker still standing at the 



Jacob Bright, Esq. 131 

table, with his three-cornered cocked hat in his hand, 
with which he points at each M.P., counts till he has 
assured himself of the gratifying fact that there are 
forty legislators present. If that number be not 
present there is no House, and M.P.'s and reporters 
steal a holiday. On the day in question, taking his 
seat in his proper place, the House was made, and 
business commenced by the Speaker declaring that 
there was a new Member to be sworn, and asking him 
to come to the table for that purpose. At this an- 
nouncement there was no little cheering on the Liberal 
benches, not very well filled, however, and silence 
amongst the Conservative ranks, represented at that 
time by no less than four individuals on the back 
benches. Not the ghost of a minister was present. 
The cheering was renewed when Mr. Jacob Bright 
was led up to the table, his brother on one side, and 
Mr. Bazley, his colleague, on the other. The clerk, 
in long black gown and with official wig, advanced 
to the new Member, standing on the side of the table 
next the Treasury Bench, and read to him the usual 
declaration, which being done, Mr. Bright signed his 
name, advanced to the Speaker, who gave him a con- 
gratulatory shake of the hand, and then retired to 
the second bench below the gangway, where, seated 
next but one to his brother, he received a cordial wel- 
come from many to whom common fame or personal 
acquaintance had indicated the worth of their new ally. 
Of course in the lobby, when the new Member made 



132 Independent Liberals. 

his appearance, there was not a little whispering 
and much anxious scrutiny on the part of spectators, 
and no wonder. Time and hard work are beginning 
to tell upon John Bright. Is he once more to have by 
his side a fitting supporter? Is the aching void, left 
by Cobden^s death, to be filled up, and by a brother ? 
These are questions, at any rate, to be asked, questions 
that must have come into some men^s minds on that 
particular night. 

In personal appearance there is very little resem- 
blance between the brothers. Mr. Jacob Bright is 
more delicate-looking than his brother, is of slighter 
build, does not wear a coat of quaker-cut, and has a 
thick beard and moustache. He is also balder than 
you would expect in a man of his age (he is but forty- 
six), and when he speaks to you you observe a little 
hacking cough, which indicates a delicacy of chest 
very undesirable in a champion of the people now-a- 
days. His features are sharper and his eye is keener 
than that of his brother. Evidently he has been a 
hard-working man all his life, and till his health broke 
down, about seven years ago, was indefatigable in 
promoting the industrial and moral welfare of the 
town of Rochdale, in which he lived, and where he is 
still engaged in business. Mr. Jacob Bright was the 
first Mayor of Rochdale. He was for years one of 
the most active promoters of the temperance cause in 
that town, and was noted in religious opinions for a 
liberality which at the recent election was made a 



Jacob Brif/hf, Esq. 133 

matter of reproach to him by those who ought to 
have known better. A few years ago he left Roch- 
dale and went to reside in the neighbourhood of Man- 
chester. At the general election of 1866 he contested 
the city, but after polling 5562 votes was beaten by 
the late Mr. E. James, Q.C. Since then he has been 
more prominent as a public man, and has taken pai-t 
in most of the Manchester meetings on the Liberal 
side ; otherwise, with the exception of his share in the 
labours of the Anti-Corn Law League, he had 
till his appearances at Manchester confined him- 
self to business, and to the advocacy in every way of 
the interests of the industrial population, amongst 
whom his lot had been cast. Such is a brief 
outline of Mr. Jacob Bright^s personal career. Let me 
add, he has achieved a good reputation as a plat- 
form orator in the provinces, and that there is 
every reason to believe that in the House of Com- 
mons he has justified the anticipations of his 
friends. Certainly, on the few occasions on which he 
has spoken his remarks were well-timed and were 
respectfully received. 

Of Mr. Jacob Briglifs political opinions but a very 
brief notice is necessary. The men sent by Man- 
chester to Parliament give no uncertain sound, the 
name he bears is also a guarantee that he belongs to 
the advanced school, and that he Avill steadily and 
earnestly labour with his voice and vote on its behalf. 
lie is of those who look to the future rather than the 



1 34 Independent Liberals. 

past; who have little sympathy with the territorial 
system which England has long outgrown; who be- 
lieve that from a people educated and possessed of 
political power we have nothing to fear^ and that on- 
ward gloriously we shall 

" Sweep into a youBger day." 

Mr. Bright is in favour of the ballot ; he says we 
must have " such a redistribution of seats as will 
take away the monopoly of political power from 
rotten boroughs^ and from small communities ;" the 
Universities must cease to be sectarian ; and we 
must have " such an educational system as that any 
man in Great Britain and Ireland will become an 
educated man.^^ He would approach the Irish 
problem by dealing with her Churchy equalizing her 
educational institutions^ and by giving " security to 
every man who endeavours to earn an honest living 
by tilling the soil of his native country.^' 

PETER TAYLOK, ESQ. 

(Leicester — Taylor, 7152; Harris, 6825; Green, 2474.) 

Leicester is a place memorable in Dissenting circles. 
Thercj if anywhere^ we may expect to find its essence 
in its purest and most unadulterated form. Traditions 
of Robert Hall yet linger in that ancient town. 
There Edward Miall preached and matured his plan 
for the establishment of the Nonconformist ; there yet 
preaches his faithful ally, the genial Mursell. Mr. 



Peter Taylor, Esq. 135 

Baincs, who lias had the honour of being its 
^Mayor, was a Church-rate martyr. Leicester is 
almostj in its way, as notorious as Manchester, on 
account of its school, — a school of which the old 
Noncons who believed in Josiah Conder were at one 
time terribly afraid. Leicester, then_, is a noteworthy 
place, and since 1862 has been represented in Parlia- 
ment by a noteworthy man. 

Mr. Peter Taylor — for it is of him we write — must 
liave been born into the world purposely to represent 
Leicester. His father was the Chairman of the 
League Conference, and one of the most active 
members of the London Anti-Corn-law Association. 
His maternal uncle was Mr. Courtauld, the gentleman 
who so widely distinguished himself by carrying the 
famous Brain tree Church-rate case until the final 
decision was given in the House of Lords, which for 
ever settled the right of a majority of rate-payers to 
le^y or refuse a Church-rate ; upsetting the previous 
decisions of the lower courts, which declared the 
churchwardens and a minority of the ratepayers to 
possess the power to make a Church-rate. 

In another way Mr. Taylor is also well qualified to 
represent Leicester. It may not be true that he who 
drives fat oxen should himself be fat ; but it is true a 
business town requires for its representative a business 
man. Mr. Taylor was a partner in the ■well-known firm 
of Courtauld and Co., the extensive silk and crape 
manufacturers at Booking, Ilalsted, and Braintrce, in 



136 Indevendent Liberals 



Essex. In his character of master-manufacturer he 
was known as a sincere philanthropist and practical 
friend of the working man^ before it was the fashion 
or a good advertisement of one's business to appear in 
such a capacity. The firm in question have long been 
conspicuous for the fair and enlightened conduct they 
have pursued towards those in their employ. As far 
back as 1858^ the latter invited their employers to a 
festival^ as a spontaneous demonstration of their good 
will and respect. Proceedings so creditable to the 
manufacturer and the operatives are much more 
common now than then. The firm in question have 
the honour of setting an example whicli others have 
followed, and by means of which a great scandal has 
been removed from our land. 

Leicester, then, found in Mr. Taylor what she 
required. Leicester, however, was not her Member^s 
first love. He had already wooed but not won New- 
castle-upon- Tyne. 

" Tliebes did his early yeai's engage ; 
He chooses Athens in his riper age." 

But it is time that we now speak of Mr. Taylor 
himself. 1819 is the date of his birth, and at a very 
early period he began to take an interest in public 
affairs. His father was, as we have already intimated, 
one of the advanced Liberals of the city; and at his 
father^s house he would meet with many of the leading- 
Liberals of the day. Chief among these was Mr. 
Johnson FoXo the well-known Unitarian minister^, 



Teter Taylor, Esq. 137 

afterwards M.P. for Oldham, with whom, to the close 
of his life, Mr, Taylor was on the most intimate 
terms. No sooner had Mr. Taylor left school than 
he began to cultivate his oratorical powers with great 
success, and became an active member on the Radical 
side of various debating societies, especially at one in 
connexion with the University College, London, where 
the writer remembers to have been struck Avith the 
ease and force with which he expressed his views, and 
with the readiness with which he combated opponents. 
Most of our eminent debaters began to be such in 
early youth. Pitt and Canning were accomplished 
speakers long before they commenced their Parlia- 
mentary career. We all know how early Sir Robert 
Peel became an orator. And such was Mr. Taylor's 
youthful fame that he delivered several lectures for 
the Anti-Corn-law League, and, at the suggestion of 
Mr. Cobden, became one of the founders of the 
Metropolitan Young Men's Anti-Monopoly Associa- 
tion, prior to the removal of the offices of the Anti- 
Corn-law League from Manchester to London. But 
Mr. Taylor's sympathies were by no means confined 
to the cause of free trade. Noble as that was, he 
was an advocate for freedom as wc;ll, — for the rights 
of man wherever he existed. In 1816 he was one of 
the most active founders of the People's International 
League; and when, in 1817, tlic Society of the 
Friends of Italy was formed, Mr. Taylor was the 
chairman of the executive committee. Subsequently 



138 Independent Liberals. 

he became chairman of the executive committee of 
the Garibaldi Italian Unity Committee^ which met at 
Y! , Southampton- street^ Strand^ the old offices of the 
Friends of Italy. For years Mr. Taylor has taken a 
deep interest in foreign affairs, especially in connexion 
with those of Italy. In 1845 he became an intimate 
friend of Mazzini_, in consequence of the treatment 
the latter received at the hands of the late Sir James 
Graham. In 1858 Mr. Taylor contested Newcastle- 
upon-Tyne. In 1860 he made an unsuccessful ap- 
pearance at Leicester; but he obtained on that occa- 
sion the reputation of " a Radical, outspoken, thorough- 
going, and honest ;^' and on the strength of that 
character got in due time to be returned. 

As a speaker Mr. Taylor at once made his way in 
the House. His maiden speech was delivered on the 
occasion of his taking his seat, and at any rate dis- 
played no sense of the speaker's being nervous or ill 
at ease. Perhaps, if anything, his coolness and self- 
assurance were somewhat too evident for the members 
of an assembly which believes itself to be the noblest 
senate in the world, and expects the debutant to be 
not a little afraid of its august character and power. 
Since then he has spoken many times, and with effect. 
One occasion the writer especially remembers. The 
debate had reference to American affairs ; and no less 
a personage than Mr. Mason, the author of the Fugi- 
tive Slave Law, and the representative in Europe of 
the Southern Confederacy — then flushed with success^ 



Peier Taylor, Esq. 139 

not, as now, an exploded sham — was present. Mr. 
Taylor, I take it, was aware of this. At any rate, he 
took the opportunity of speaking, and uttered a sen- 
timent to the effect — I forget the exact terms — that 
he would rather be the most degraded creature in 
existence, than be the author of so infamous a measure 
as the Fugitive Slave LaAv. The speech told with 
wonderful effect. Mr. Mason, it was evident, listened 
with the utmost attention, and the hit at himself — of 
course quite unexpected — seemed utterly to paralyse 
him. All at once his face blanched, and his emotion 
was painful to witness. He turned to a Member 
sitting next him, and essayed a sickly smile ; but the 
attempt was a failure, which but feebly covered his 
feeling of mortification and his sense of shame. That 
speech was an oratorical success of which any one 
might be proud. Of course, the reader need not be 
told in what part of the House Mr. Taylor sits. His 
place is in the neighbourhood of Mr. Bright, to whom he 
renders a hearty allegiance, and in whose opinions shares. 
Apparently Mr. Taylor is destined for many years 
of active service. His health seems good, and he is 
generally to be found at his post. He has a spare 
figure, keen blue eyes, long dark liair, and bushy 
beard, — a thoughtful, earnest-looking man, evidently 
intent on other matters than personal appearance or 
display. His voice is sharp and powerful; he always 
speaks as if he said what he meant, and as if he 
meant what he said. There are, it is to be feared. 



140 Independent Liberals. 

many Eeformers — pledged Reformers, I mean — in the 
House who do not care one iota about Reform. To 
that class Mr. Taylor cannot be said to belong. 

JAMES WHITE, ESQ. 

(Bkighton— WmTE, 3351; Fawcett, 3086; Ashbuky, C, 2092; 
CoNiNGHAM, 408 ; Moore, 1243.) 

To spend other people's money in a handsome way,, 
and thereby to get credit for generosity and liberality, 
is to not very conscientious people one of the plea- 
santest things in the world. The economical reformer 
is always in a minority. The subject to which he 
devotes himself is not an attractive one ; the figures 
with which he has to deal are not those of rhetoric, 
and it is rarely that he gets the support of any con- 
siderable partj on either side of the House. The rea- 
son of this is not far to seek. The ministry for the 
time being have no great horror of having a large 
revenue in their hands. It gives them influence; it 
enables them to employ a large number of officials, 
and thus strengthen their parliamentary influence and 
connexion. The Opposition have always the hope of 
being in office themselves, and they have not only the 
pleasing chance of having the income of the nation at 
their disposal, but they have also to remember that if, 
out of office, they bind themselves to economical 
reforms, they may be called upon, in a very incon- 
venient manner, to fulfil the pledges they rashly gave. 
One of the most artful things ever done by that saga- 



James White, Esq. 141 

cious statesman^ the Duke of "Wellington, was to 
accept defeat when it was inevitable ou a question 
of economical rather than political Reform. In 1830 
he saw that his administration did not command sup- 
port in the new parliament, and when, to the amaze- 
ment of Sir H. Parnell, his amendment on the Civil 
List was carried, the Opposition found themselves 
hampered with pledges which they had given, never 
dreaming of such a sudden turn of affairs. In his 
fall the Duke contrived not a little to damage his ad- 
versaries. Hence it is that regular party men have 
ever been very chary in demanding reduction of 
national expenditure, and, unlike the flower-girls of 
Paris, immortalized by Biddy Fudge, have been 
averse to 

" Disturb a romance with pecuniary views." 

It is all very well to say that the country is rich 
and prosperous ; that the middle and upper classes 
don^t feel the weight of taxation ; that our operatives 
are well employed, and at remunerative wages, and are 
willing to contribute to maintaining the honour and 
glory of Old England. We know better. Look at 
the weaver in Bethnal-green, the widow stitching 
shirts at 4d. per day for a Jew slop-seller, the agri- 
culturist with his large family brought up on wages 
seldom exceeding 12s. a week ; think of a little child 
of four years old earning her own living ! It is for 
these and such as these, and there are far too many of 
them, that taxation is a heavy burden. But they arc 



142 Independent Liberals. 

not a powerful class^, and their friends are few. 
Joseph Hume was one of tbem^ and Mr. James White, 
member for Brighton, is another. 

My own impression is that a financial reformer 
should be a very big man^ and Mr. White has this 
essential qualification, as he is certainly one of the 
biggest men in the House. He should also be a very 
good-natured man, and Mr. White is this ; and be 
prepared in an assembly inclined to extravagant ex- 
penditure to be considered a bit of a bore. " Who 
have you been listening to V said a gentleman to me 
one night, after I had heard Mr. White's speech 
on his motion to the efiect that the expenditure of the 
Government has of late years been excessive, and that 
it should be, in justice to the working-classes, reduced — 
" who have you been listening to V " To Mr. 
Wbite,'' was my reply. " Ah V said he, " Til be 
bound to say that there was some good stuff in his 
speech." And so undoubtedly there was ; yet few 
M.P.'s, comparatively speaking, cared to hear it ; and 
the debate was got over as quickly as possible. Joseph 
Hume, as we can all remember, was served in the 
same way ; yet we have in the diaries and memoirs of 
the leading statesmen of that day, subsequently pub- 
lished, ample evidence that they were all terribly afraid 
of Hume's criticisms in the House of Commons — 
criticisms often delivered to an almost empty House, 
and to an audience by no means admiring or sympa- 
thetic; and more than once it is very evident that 



James While, Esq. 143 

George IV., or those who mauaged the aflfairs of the 
nation for him, wished Mr. Hume at Hanover. Let 
this be an encom-agcment to Mr. "V\Tiitej who is fol- 
lowing in Mr. Hume's steps, and has the field almost 
entirely to himself. The part may not be an ambitious 
one, but it is a useful one. It may not lead to office, 
but it will surely gain for him who acts it successfully 
the reward of a nation's thanks. London-super-Mare 
has reason to be proud of her member. He is a man 
of business, and he sticks to it. He speaks on business 
subjects, and in a business way, with no ambitious 
flourishes, and no laboured rhetoric, but with all the 
force and effectiveness of earnestness and common sense. 

Mr. White has the good sense to understand this. 
It must be remembered that he entered Parliament 
when he had arrived at matm'e years — after a life 
spent in the acquisition of wealth and independence in 
a distant quarter of the globe. 

In the small band of advanced Reformers Mr. White 
occupies no mean place. The readers and purchasers 
of penny newspapers are under great obligations to 
him. It will be remembered that the Lords objected to 
the repeal of the paper duty, and that there was danger 
lest that important measure should be defeated. A 
Constitutional Defence Association was formed, round 
which rallied the friends of cheap knowledge in all 
parts of the country. Of this assotiiation Mr. James 
White was the indefatigable and untiring chairman ; 
the committee met, I think, daily. Mr. White was 



144 Independent Liher ah. 

never absent from Ws post^ tlie country was thoroughly 
rousedj Mr. Gladstone was cheered on his way^ and 
the abolition of the paper duties was the result. The 
good thus effected I think it is impossible to over- 
estimate. We have just passed through a great struggle 
for Reform ; yet how peaceful was the situation ! how 
different to what it was in 1830^ when the Birmingham 
political union was a standing menace which frightened 
the privileged classes and compelled them reluctantly 
to yield lleform ! What has made the difference ? 
The answer is^ The cheap press^ which has taught the 
working man to reflect^ and shrivelled up the pride of 
the blatant demagogue. The boon was not won one 
minute too early. Just as the cheap press got into 
existence there came the American war^ and the 
cotton-spinners of Lancashire were struck down with 
bitter poverty and biting want. Did ever a people 
under similar circumstances behave with such noble, 
such Christian resignation ? How was it that they 
did not do as they were wont to do — rise up in masses 
and frighten all above them ? How was it no special 
constables were sworn in ? that no dragoons were 
quartered in Manchester and Blackburn ? that no 
shops were pillaged and no gentlemen''s mansions 
burnt? The answer is, that they knew better, that 
they were educated by the Sunday-school, by the 
preacher, and, last and not least, by the everywhere- 
circulating penny press. It has often struck me with 
surprise how in the hurry and hustle of life so little 



George Mellij, Ksq. 145 

recognition has been taken of the men Trho created a 
cheap press, who rolled away the stone from the door 
to let in light and knowledge in the darkest corners 
of the land. Especial thanks^ at any rate, are due 
to Milner Gibson, and latterly to Mr. T\Tiite. 

In the House Mr. White's seat is generally below 
the gangway, whoever may be in office. If you are 
not in a position to see him, you can tell where 
he is in a storm of " Hear, hears,'' or " Divide, 
divides," as his full deep voice wells up out of his 
capacious chest (when he was M.P. for Plymouth his 
loud cheer was known as the Plymouth Sound). He 
is a man to catch your eye anywhere, as few have 
a jollier or more portly presence. It is true his 
black whiskers are tinged with grey; that his curly 
short hair has become thin at the top of the head ; 
but nevertheless his beaming, rosy countenance indi- 
cates a vitality far from exhausted, and a power of 
work which promises endurance for many years. 

GEORGE MELLY, ESQ. 

( SiOKE-r PON-Trent— Melly and Eoden, Liberals — unoi^posed.) 

Last session a new Member made a maiden speech. 
Apparently he was, comparatively speaking, a young 
man, of ordinary stature, with fresh face, dark eves, 
and dark hair. A maiden speech is always a trying 
occasion. A member can rarely do justice to himself 
at such times. His voice is' generally thin, owing 



146 Indejjendent Liberals. 

perhaps to his having not at once got the range of 
the House, and possibly to a nervous dread of the 
august assembly before whom he rises to speak. The 
gentleman to whom I refer, Mr. Melly, the new M.P. 
for Stoke, was, however, equal to the occasion; at 
aoy rate he did not break down amidst universal 
laughter, as men sometimes do. The subject of 
debate hajDpened to be Mr. John Abel Smith's mea- 
sure for the curtailing the sale of liquors on Sunday, 
a subject on which considerable interest has been ex- 
cited in all ranks of the community, the publicans 
considering any legislation on the matter an inter- 
ference with the rights of the working man to get 
beastly drunk, whip his wife, and starve his children ; 
and the religious, and especially the temperance section 
of the British community, failing to see any need of a 
public house being open on a day when all other shops 
are closed. The new M.P. did not make a long 
speech, but what he did say was to the point. In 
supporting the Bill he said its object was to close the 
avenues as far as possible which were now open to the 
working man to spend his wages in drink as soon as 
he received them. Mr. Melly then adduced Liver- 
pool, the place with which he was more immediately 
connected, as an illustration of what might be done by 
stringent regulations. 

Stoke, whose new M.P. has thus broken ground, 
is the capital of one of England's grandest and most 
successful industries. Its Parliamentary Kmits com- 



George MeJhj, Esq. 147 

prise Burslenij Tuustall, Hanley, Sliclton, StokCj 
Longtoiij and Lane-eud. The town is in the centre 
of the PotterieSj and its chief manufacture is china, 
earthenware, ornamental and encaustic tiles. Taste, 
capital, industry have spread the fame of the Potteries 
all the world over. Its history is deeply interesting. 
Not two hundred years ago a small business was estab- 
lished at Burslem for making earthenware of a coarse 
description, coated with a common lead glaze. About 
the year 1690 the manufacture was improved by two 
Dutchmen, the brothers Elers, who introduced the 
mode of glazing ware by the vapour of salt, which 
they threw by handfuls among the ignited goods into 
the kiln. But these were rude, unscientific, and de- 
sultory efforts. It is to the celebrated Josiah Wedg- 
wood that this country and the world at large are 
mainly indebted for the great modern advancement of 
the ceramic art. It was he who first erected magni- 
ficent factories, where every resource of mechanical 
and chemical science was made to co-operate with the 
arts of painting, sculpture, and statuary, in perfecting 
this valuable branch of trade. So sound were his 
principles, so judicious his procedure, and so ably have 
they been prosecuted by his successors in Staffordshire, 
that a district formerly bleak and barren and unpro- 
fitable, but ten miles long and two or three broad, 
now returns tAvo members to Parliament, contributes 
immensely to our national dignity and wealth, and is 
inhabited by a pojmlation of considerably more than 



148 Independent Liberals 



a hundred thousand. Nor do the people at the 
Potteries rest satisfied with the eclat they have already- 
gained. At the last Paris Exhibition^ where British 
manufacturers were unfairly treated^ as Mr. Eugene 
Rimmel himself confesses in his interesting little 
work on the subject, after all, gold medals were 
awarded to Minton and Co. and Copeland and Sons. 
We are all proud of the Potteries. You would 
not go there for rural beauty, for retirement, for 
sunny skies, green fields, and silvery streams. It 
is not a place for fashion and high life to resort to. 
It is not there the languid belle or the used-up swell 
would hasten to drink the waters or participate in the 
pleasures and sports of country life. It is a monster 
beehive, swarming with civilization and intelligence 
and life, where the fair humanities bloom and bear 
fruit in spite of chimneys vomiting forth smoke all 
day long, of waste plots heaped up with cinders, scoriae, 
and fragments of broken pots which have not stood 
the fire, and coal all around. A place of such perse- 
vering industry should return a persevering man. 
Mr. Melly is pre-eminently such. He has already 
fought three Parliamentary contests. In 1862 Mr. 
Melly was defeated at Preston by Sir Thomas Hesketh. 
In 1865 he was in a minority at Stoke, the numbers 
being — Beresford Hope, 1463; Grenfell, 1373; and 
Melly, 1277. Last session, in consequence of Mr. 
Beresford Hope coming forward for Cambridge, there 
was a vacancy at Stoke. Again Mr. Melly appeared 



Geor(je Melly, Esq. 140 

as a candidate. The occasion was an eventful one. 
A Reform Bill had been carried, and it was left to 
Stoke to decide whether the men who passed that 
measure were the earnest friends of the people they 
professed to be. The clear-headed men of the Potte- 
ries gave a decided answer in the negative. The 
numbers were: Mr. Melly (Liberal), 1489; Mr. 
Campbell (Conservative), senior partner of Minton 
and Co., 1428. Great excitement of course pre- 
vailed, but there was no disorder. In thanking the 
electors, Mr. Melly observed that he accepted the 
Wctory in the names of Mr. Gladstone, Earl Russell, 
]Mr. Bright, and the great Liberal party. The Pot- 
teries now return two Liberal M.P.'s ; such is their 
confidence in the " truly Liberal policy " of Mr. 
Disraeli and his friends, in spite of the fact that it was 
objected to Mr. Melly that he was a Unitarian, and 
that, besides, his opponent was a local candidate, 
representing one of the leading industries of the 
district. 

One word about the election. It was a model 
one, and deserves to be held up to public admiration. 
The candidates pledged themselves to abstain from all 
forms of treating and undue pressure, and especially 
from that greatest of all sources of demoralization at 
contested elections, the holding of committee meetings 
at public-houses. " The result,-*^ says the Staffordshir e 
Advertiser, a neutral journal, " has been one upon 
which the district may reflect with honest pride and 



150 ' Independent Liberals. 



just satisfaction. Probably no election in tbe Pot- 
teries was ever more sturdily contested ; and certainly 
on no former occasion was there such a marked ab- 
sence of insobriety, violence, and intimidation/^ The 
^Staffordshire Sentinel declares that the speech of Mr. 
Melly at the declaration of the poll was " so becoming 
as to satisfy his political opponents that in him the 
borough has elected one who is worthy and well able 
to represent it in Parliament.^^ 

The Melly family are, I believe, of Swiss extraction. 
The father was the founder of the mercantile house 
which has existed at Liverpool for half a century, and 
which early attained a great success. To Charles, the 
elder brother of Mr. George Melly, the British public 
— especially the temperance section of it — are under 
great obligations, as to him we are indebted for the 
origin of the Drinking Fountain Movement. 

Of Mr. Melly himself we add a few further parti- 
culars. He was born August 20, 1830, and is the 
second son of Andrew Melly of Liverpool, merchant, 
and Ellen Greg, daughter of the first Member for 
Manchester under the Reform Bill of 1832. Mr. Melly 
was educated at Rugby, under the present Archbishop 
of Canterbury. His commercial education was com- 
menced under a firm in the City — Messrs. Morris, 
Prevost, and Co. — of the highest standing. In 1853, 
on the death of his father during a tour in Southern 
Nubia, Mr. Melly became a partner in the house of 
Melly, Romilly, and Co., Mr. Henry RomiUy, his 



Tliomas Hughes, Es:^. 151 

guardian, and the then senior partner, being a son of 
Sir Samuel Romilly. It will thus be seen that his 
political education was under sound auspices. 

!Mr. Melly is author of " Khartoum and the Blue 
and White Niles/' 1852, two editions; " School Expe- 
rience of a Fag," 1856, one vol. ; of about twelve pam- 
phlets on Education Compulsory, 1859 ; Reformatory 
Schools ; Future of the Working Classes, &c. &c. &c. 
He was Hon. Secretary of the Social Science Congress, 
Liverpool, 1859 ; Major commanding the Fourth Lan- 
cashire Artillery Volunteers, 1859 — 1866; Member 
of the ^Mersey Docks and Harbour Board. Besides, 
he is member of the Committee of Akbar Reformatory 
Ship ; of Discharged Prisoners^ Aid Society ; of Ragged 
School Society ; of that on Compulsory Education, 
Liverpool; he is also a member of the Council of 
Social Science ; and a director of the Union Marine 
Insui-ance Company. 

THOMAS HUGHES, ESQ. 

(Frome — Hughes, 671 ; Sleigh, C, 476.) 

In the lobby of the House of Commons you may often 
see, while Parliament is sitting, a tall, light-faced, 
light-haired (" auricomous " I believe is the proper 
term, if I may borrow from Mrs. Borrodailc or Madam 
Rachel), gcntlemaidy-looking man in the prime of life, 
of pleasant manner and active temperament. He is 
always neatly dressed, and seems to have many ac- 



152 Independent Liberals. 



quaintauces of an Immbler position in society than that 
to which he himself evidently belongs. All the out- 
of-door agitators who get up the steam, or at any 
rate who think they do, in the metropolis, are familiar 
with him ; and you see him shaking hands with depu- 
tations clearly of an industrial origin, and represent- 
ing co-operative societies or trades unions. The 
gentleman to whom I allude is Mr. Hughes, better 
known as Tom Hughes, author of '' Tom Brown^s 
School-days,'-* " The Scouring of the White Horse,^' 
and other books that were very popular in their day 
and generation. It does not follow that a gentleman 
who writes a hearty and healthy book for schoolboys 
should make a good Member of Parliament. The 
tale-writer and the statesman have very little in com- 
mon. Mr. Hughes, however, had been something 
more than a writer. He had had much to do with 
working men ; he had been one of the few earnest 
workers associated with Mr. Maurice in bringing 
together the middle and upper classes of society 
and the working men; he had devoted to the latter 
much of his energy and time. Nor were they un- 
grateful. Under the old system there were few 
boroughs in which the working man had so much 
influence as Lambeth. At the 1865 general election 
they placed Mr. Hughes at the head of the poll. The 
numbers were : Hughes, 6373 ; Doulton, 6280 ; 
Lawrence, 4743 ; Haig, Conservative, 514. As re- 
gards Mr. Hughes, the expense was, comparatively 



Tliomas Hughes, Esq, 153 

speaking, very smallj the principal part of the work was 
done by friends and unpaid canvassers. Even that ex- 
pense, however, Mr. Hughes considered was more than 
a candidate ought legitimately to be asked to incur. An 
M.P. who has been in Parliament ought at any rate to be 
able to appeal to his past services, and to rely upon 
them as a fair claim to re-election. In con- 
formity with this principle, recently Mr. Hughes 
left to his rivals to hire public-houses, to placard the 
borough, to organize an expensive system of canvas — 
in short, to move heaven and earth to gratify an 
honourable ambition, and to get themselves returned 
for Lambeth. While we were anxiously and hope- 
fully awaiting the result of this novel and manly action 
on the part of Mr. Hughes, all at once it was an- 
nounced that there had been a change at head-quarters. 
Sir Henry Rawlinson accepted a seat in the Indian 
Council. This appointment vacated his seat for 
Frome, and Mr. Hughes at once and with marvellous 
agility transferred his affections to the latter locality. 
Nor is he to be blamed for so doing. The step, I be- 
lieve, was taken to advance the interests of the Liberal 
party. Mr. Hughes's success at Frome was certain, but 
it was not so certain thart if Mr. Hughes had kept to 
Lambeth a Liberal would have been returned for 
Frome ; as it is, Lambeth is certain to return two 
Liberals, and Froiue thus has the honour of being 
rcj)rcsonted in person by no less a distinguished per- 
sonage than Mr. Thomas Hughes. 



154 Indepetident Liberals. 

Asa politician Mr. Hughes has not made mucli way 
in the House. He is there considered more of an 
authority on social matters. Certainly it is on these 
latter questions he feels himself most at home ; never- 
theless, as a politician he has been a steady, an earnest, 
a consistent Liberal. He has been in Parliament 
during three eventful years, and as his working class 
admirers say in their address to the working men of 
Lambeth, " On every occasion when the great question 
of improving the representation of the people was 
before the House, he was at his post urging their 
claim to full enfranchisement.'^ He is sound on the 
vital matters, the redistribution of seats, and the mis- 
chievous rate-paying clauses. As regards the ballot, 
Mr. Hughes wishes to see the electors placed in a 
position of political independence, and therefore 
capable of voting freely and openly. He has pledged 
himself to support any measure which would enable 
any constituency to decide for itself whether it would 
have its electors vote by ballot, and perhaps that is as 
much as can be expected. The ballot is not a mea- 
sure to which any one would lightly or very willingly 
resort. In a free country we expect a man boldly to 
proclaim his political opinions, and as boldly to support 
them with his vote. We must all abhor the necessity 
which requires the ballot. On the Irish Church 
Mr. Hughes is sound. In Parliament Mr. Hughes has 
ever given a hearty support to the policy of the great 
leader of the Liberal party, and he is not likely to 



Thomas Hughes, Esq. 155 

desert the latter now that his triumph seems sure. 
But we need not dwell on Mr. Hughes's merits as a 
politician. " In conclusion/' say the working men of 
Lambeth, " the conduct of Mr. Hughes during the 
whole of his political life has been of the most 
exemplary character." 

As we have said, the questions in which Mr. 
Hughes is peculiarly interested, and on which he is 
most forcible in the House, are questions of an edu- 
cational or social nature. He has supported Mr. 
Coleridge's praiseworthy efforts to make our sectarian 
Universities truly national. He was also very effi- 
cient in carrying Mr. Torrens' Bill authorizing the 
Government to advance money to provide improved 
dwellings for the working classes. As a friend of 
justice to all classes of the community alike, Mr. 
Hughes has devoted a considerable portion of his 
time and ability to protect honest tradesmen from the 
dishonest competition of dealers who cheat the public 
by using unjust weights and measures. It was said 
that by this course Mr. Hughes had endangered his 
seat in Lambeth. We can scarcely believe this. The 
supposition that in that borough there are more dis- 
honest tradesmen than honest ones, to say nothing of 
the working-class voters who suffer from these practices, 
and might be supposed to rally round any one who 
would expose such dishonesty, is simply ridiculous. 
On such questions as these in the House of Commons 
he is second to no one. In another respect he stands 



156 Independent Lib er ah. 

also alone. By moral means alone the working 
classes placed Mm at the head of the poll on his first 
election. It is to be questioned whether in the late 
Parliament there was another M.P. similarly returned. 
We hear much of the need of sending working men 
Members to Parliament, Mr. Hughes is a model of 
what a working man M.P. should be ; firm in prin- 
ciple, conciliatory in utterance, ready to express his 
convictions and to carry them whether they are popu- 
lar or the reverse. On the Sunday question, for in- 
stance, Mr. Hughes^s opinions are not those of a ma- 
jority of his Lambeth friends, — but they do not think 
of him anything the worse for that. 

Mr. Hughes is young comparatively speaking. He 
was born in 1823, and is the second son of the late 
J. Hughes, Esq., of Donnington Priory, Berks. In 
1847 he married the eldest daughter of the Rev. 
James Ford, Prebendary of Exeter. He was — as we 
need scarce remark — educated at Rugby in its palmy 
days. In 1845 he took his B.A. degree at Oxford, 
where he had been a student in Oriel, and in 1848 he 
was called to the Bar at Lincoln's Inn. In that year, 
as we know, society was moved to its lowest deep. 
No wonder that since then a new spirit has been 
abroad in the land, or that a man like Mr. Hughes 
should seek especially to represent it in the British 
Senate. 



Jcfon Smee Aj/rfon, Esq. 157 



ACTON SMEE AYRTON, ESQ. 

(Tower Ha^ilets— Ayhton, 9839; Samuda, 7849; Beales, 7160; 
CooPE, C, 7446 ; Newton, 2890.) 

In the old unreformed Parliament the Tower Hamlets 
— or rather the Parliamentary borough of that name 
— ^had a population of 647,845 and an electoral body 
of 29,799, a constituency, in short, the largest in the 
kingdom. Under the new dispensation the popula- 
tion has been di-saded, and the new borough of the 
Tower Hamlets will consist only of the river-side 
parishes from the Tow-er to Bow Creeks together with 
the eastern parishes of Bow and Bromley. It is clear 
the new borough will be large enough. It will have 
a population of 337,000, and an electoral body not 
much smaller than before the diAdsion. In Poplar, 
Limehouse, Stepney, St. George's-in-the-East, and 
Whitechapel, places where men live by hard work, 
and have little interest in great Government expendi- 
ture or in aristocratic institutions, people are mostly 
Liberal. For the borough at the recent election there 
were four candidates in the field, all very Liberal. 
One was Mr. Beales, another was Mr. Samuda, 
another was Mr. Newton, and a fourth was Acton Smee 
Ayrton, Esq. It is of this latter gentleman we 
propose to speak. Other things being equal, no sen- 
sible constituency would make a change merely for 
the love of change. No man willingly gets rid of 
a good servant. Most wise men believe it to be 



158 Inde'pendent Liber 



better to bear the ills they have than fly to those they 
know not of. Tried men^ at any rate, are infinitely 
to be preferred to untried ones. A man who has 
made his mark in the House of Commons, who is 
listened to when he speaks, who cannot be snubbed 
or put down, who, at any rate, has shown superiority 
to the rank and file around him, it is clear has a kind 
of moral right to say to the electors, " I have served 
you faithfully ; I have been laborious in my exertions 
for your welfare : I have a right to expect that you 
will return me again.''^ The fickleness of the multi- 
tude is proverbial. Their passion for new brooms, 
which do not after all sweep cleaner than the old, is 
matter of history. But it is to be hoped in the 
enlightened region of the Tower Hamlets, where de- 
mocracy has it all its own way, it may be shown that 
the people of the present age can appreciate and 
reward loyalty to their interests. In this respect the 
claims of no new man can for an instant be com- 
pared with those of the present Member. In the old 
Parliament Mr. Ayrton was almost a model M.P., 
never absent from his post, ever ready to do the best 
he could with his tongue or by his vote. 

Nature has not fitted Mr. Ayrton to act the part 
of a demagogue. Nor has he any of a mob orator's 
qualifications. He has very much the appearance of 
a hard, dry lawyer in a good state of preservation, 
not given to let his tongue run faster than his 
thoughts, or to talk more than to do. He has not 



Acton Smee Ayrton, Esq. 159 

much enthusiasm himself, nor is he calculated to 
create much enthusiasm in the minds of others. His 
private history is soon told. He is the third son of 
F. Ayrtou, Esq., formerly of Gray's-inn, and late of 
Bombay, by Julia, only child of Lieutenant-Colonel 
Nugent. He was born in 1816 ; he was called to the 
bar by the Middle Temple in 1853. He was elected 
for the Tower Hamlets about the same time, and is a 
member of the Reform Club. In a long speech which 
he made the other day he referred to his political 
life since his first connexion with the borough, now 
sixteen years ago, and reminded his hearers of the 
fidelity and consistency of his conduct with regard to 
the rights of labour, reform, education, the Irish 
Church, and other questions of the day. 

As regards the future, it may be safely affirmed 
Mr. Ayi'ton will foUow the party of which Mr. Glad- 
stone is the leader. It is true, he tells us, the Con- 
servatives have given us on compulsion a Reform Bill 
— but as bad as it could be. It is true they have 
adopted the great principle of household sufii'age, but 
at the same time they had so complicated it by rate- 
paying clauses and conditions of residence, as to 
render it to a great extent nugatojy. The redistribu- 
tion clauses must be considered only as temporary, 
and more than ever will the voter requii-e the pro- 
tection of the ballot. On the question of the reduc- 
tion of our national expenditure Mr. Ayrton is equally 
decided. On Church questions he is unwilling to 



160 Independent Liberals. 

admit that the New Testament is not applicable to 
present circumstances^ and that Christians could not 
support their own places of worship and ministers on 
the voluntary principle, just as in the Tower Hamlets 
the dissenters do theirs. He anticipates in the Church 
of the future a Presbyterian element. As regards local 
taxation, Mr. Ayrton declares that it is monstrous 
that fashionable people should build houses where 
none but they could live. He is for placing the poor 
charges upon the whole metropolis, and not upon 
separate districts. On the delicate question of ladies 
voting, Mr. Ayrton^s answers are not satisfactory to 
the advanced females of whom Mrs. Harriet Law may 
be said to be the leader. With regard to the Permis- 
sive Bill he will allow the inhabitants of a district to 
exercise their own discretion, and would not leave the 
licensing to the discretion of the magistrate. He is 
in favour of the continuance of the Income-tax; and 
referring to the opening of places of public amusement 
on Sunday, he said it would be an unfortunate thing 
if the Government were to set their servants to work 
on that day. On these questions Mr. Ayrton^s 
opinions were satisfactory. At the last election he 
coalesced with no other candidate, but threw himself 
on the intelligence of the great body of electors. 
He was quite right in doing so. We were sure, as 
it turned out, that the Tower Hamlets would not 
reject him for an untried man. A metropolitan M.P. 
is in one respect deeply to be pitied. He is never 



Acfo7i Smee Ayrinn, Esq. 161 

out of the reach of his constituents. He is expected 
always to be at their beck and call. He never has a 
moment to himself. How far happier is the man 
who represents the Orkneys or the Land^s-end. If he 
offends his constituents their anger is appeased by the 
time he makes his appearance among them. It is 
only occasionally he has to assume a respectful atti- 
tude towards the constituent body. The metropolitan 
M.P. has always to mind his manners, not only once 
a week, but all the year round. 

It was in this last Session of Parliament that Mr. 
Ayrton more particularly came to the front. Ever 
since he had been an M.P. he had taken an eminently 
respectable position, but in the temporary disorganiza- 
tion of the Liberal ranks Mr. Ayii;on's fidelity and 
perseverance placed him in a new position. Some 
time ago, when the great meeting of the Liberal party 
was held at the house of the present Prime Minister, 
Mr. Ayrton declared that an increase of the number 
of voters, without a redistribution of scats, would be a 
national injury rather than a benefit, and true to this 
idea he triumphed more than once over the Conservative 
Ministry. Again, Mr. Ayrton signally distinguished 
himself as a leader in the opposition made to the 
Metropolitan Cattle Market Bill — a Bill which in 
spite of the enthusiastic support of the country gen- 
tlemen, was ultimately withdrawn, — a Bill which, had 
it been carried, would have materially increased the 
cost of meat to the poor of London, and besides was 

M 



162 Independent Liberals. 

a violatioD of free trade. That Mr. Ayrton is not 
deficient in moral courage is clear from the fact that 
on one occasion he actually dared to beard Mr. Beales 
and his friends at one of their gatherings in St. 
Jameses Hall. He differed from them on some par- 
ticular question, and took the liberty to tell them so. 
Clearly such a man as Mr. Ayrton, by faitlifal and 
independent service, by well-tried ability, has proved 
his right to bs at any rate one of the men for the 
new Parliament. 

EDWARD BAINES. 

(Leeds — Baines, 15,946 ; Carter, 15,105 ; "Wheelhouse, C, 
9437; DuNcoMBE, C, 1621.) 

LaRD Holland was a Whig nobleman, and we dare 
say gave on appropriate occasions " the Liberty of the 
Press.^^ Tom Moore was a gentleman of the press, 
and in common with more exalted literary gentle- 
men had the run of Holland House. We read in 
Moore^'s diary an account of a breakfast in that head- 
o^uarters of Whiggery in 1831 : " Talked of the state 
of the press, the great misfortune of the total separa- 
tion that had taken place between those who conduct 
it and the better rank of society ; even from literature 
it had become in a great measure separated, instead 
of forming, as in France, a distinguished branch of it. 
Now you,^^ he said, " and all the other eminent literary 
persons of the day, keep as much aloof from the gen- 
tlemen of the press as we of the political world do. 



Edward Babies. 163 

and tliey are therefore thrown, with all their force and 
their "virulence unsoftened by the commerce of society, 
to form a separate and hostile class of themselves." 
We have here the accepted creed in good society. It is 
true Lord Palmerston told us he had met Mr. Delane, 
of the Times, in society, that he had had the honour of 
receiving him at his own hoiise, that he found him a 
very agreeable and intelligent gentleman ; but then 
Lord Palmerston had happily reached a time of life 
when people are not very particular as to what 
company they keep. 

In England journalism, like virtue, is its own reward. 
Wordsworth tells us, 

" We poets in oiir youtli begin in gladness, 
Wliereof comes in the end despondency and madness." 

But the poet may become a lion, may have a pension, 
may die poet-laureate. All abuse the literary man. 
Lord John Russell says he is prone to be discontented 
with the Government under which he lives — a feeling 
as natural to him as the attachment of the Bedford 
family to Woburn Abbey and the glorious Reforma- 
tion. Undoubtedly the proper place for the journalist 
is the House of Commons. Did we proceed upon the 
supposition that governing was a science and not an 
hereditary gift; not a freak of nature, as the thick 
upper lip of the House of Hapsburg, but a capacity 
only to be found in men of strong natures, a capacity, 
moreover, becoming stronger and wiser, as it is wisely 
nurtured and e.\crcisecl, the journalists in the House 

M 2 



164 Independent Liberals. 

of Commons would be a numerous class. As it is_, 
ihe loss is chiefly that of the nation^ for perhaps the 
journalist is the only man in England who studies 
politics for their own sake. The scion of the aristo- 
cracy looks upon the representation of his division of 
the county as one of his hereditary rights and duties — 
a bore perhaps,, but one of the penalties he must pay 
for being so immensely cleverer and wiser than the 
rest of humanity. His father is the largest proprietor 
in BlankshirCj and the estate always returns the M.P, 
That honour is transmitted with the family spoons, 
and will be till such time as future reformed con- 
stituencies shall ask of a man — not what acres are 
his by the accident of birth, but what are his capa- 
bilities and brains. The lawyer would laugh at you as 
a simpleton if you supposed for an instant that he goes 
through the expense and trouble of a parliamentary 
election for any other purpose than that of his own 
promotion. The soldier or the sailor seeks a seat in 
Parliament for the same reason. The merchant and 
the contractor and the manufacturer are more prone 
to look after their own interests than those of the 
public. There are many well- meaning men blessed 
with long purses, who are returned on account of local 
influence and unlimited expenditure, merely for the 
sake of a little natural and not discreditable vanity, 
but the journalist is the only man whose days and 
nights are devoted to politics, who knows better than 
all other men the state of public feeling, the ignorance 



Edward Babies. 1G5 

or the prejudice and the passions of the hour, who can 
best distinguish the genuine wants and wishes of the 
agC; and is most given to the solution of temporary 
problems by the application of abstract principles and 
eternal truths ; and yet this is the man who most rarely 
enters the walls of St. Stephen^s. In politics, it seems as 
if there was a dead set against newspaper writers. It 
is true that we suflPer for this ; that if we go to war 
our armies perish, as in the Crimea or at Walcheren ; 
that we hold India by an army where mutiny seems 
chronic ; that our taxation has reached a climax which 
to all thoughtful men is appalling ; that we have 
forfeited our continental friendships ; that nowhere 
are the poor so poor, so depraved, so ignorant, as in 
this land of enormous wealth, where we have an aris- 
tocracy and a State Church the richest in Europe. 
It is true we suffer all this in good company, and that 
so indomitable is English pluck that we keep right in 
the main; but this could be achieved at a much less 
expenditure of precious treasure and still more pre- 
cious blood and brain. Tom Moore tells us of a party 
at which were present a country squire and a poet ; 
the former Avas AvonderfuUy polite to the latter, and in 
adjourning to the next room offered him precedence. 
"When told, however, the individual was a mere poet, 
** Oh \" said he, " I know my place," and rudely 
pushing in before, left the poor poet to follow. Our 
statesmen treat the journalist in the same way. If we 
are ruined we arc rejoiced to learn that it is not by 



166 Independent Liberals. 

what Lord John Eussell termed^ when he was making 
such a mess of it at Vienna, " the ribald press/' Of 
the institution thus termed, Mr. Edward Baines is one 
of the most distinguished members. 

Let me observe, in the first place, Mr. Baines has 
the great merit of being the son of his father. Years 
and years ago, when Leeds was unrepresented, when 
Parliament was unreformed, when the most hideous 
class legislation prevailed, there went into Leeds a 
young lad born near Preston, in Lancashire, of whom 
his schoolmaster prophesied that he would be either a 
great man or would be hanged. This lad married, 
and settled in Leeds as a printer. He began by laying 
down the rule that he would not spend more than 
half his income, and he acted on it. He always drank 
water ; he took no snuif j he never smoked. Neither 
tavern nor theatre saw his face. Yet he was not an 
earthworm ; he was a man of great public spirit, but 
the pure joys of domestic life, the pleasures of industry, 
and the satisfaction of doing good, combined to make 
him happy. The lad did not end his days on the 
gallows, nor did he become great in the general ac- 
ceptance of the term, but in his way, and for him, he 
was a great man. He became prosperous ; he won 
many friends ; they assisted him to purchase the Leeds 
Mercury ; the proprietor, who had taught himself to 
speak when a lad by being a member of a discussion 
class, threw himself heart and soul into the struggle 
for Reform. Leeds and Yorkshire felt deeply on this 



Edward Baines. 167 

matter ; not a meeting on the subject scarcely was 
held at wliich he did not assist. When Leeds had the 
franchise first extended to it^ it was owing in a great 
measure to him that Messrs. Marshall and INIacaulay 
were returned; and on the appointment of the latter 
to a seat in the Council of the Governor-General of 
India, he, after a pretty close struggle with Sir John 
Beckett, was elected in his place. Such was Edward 
Baines, senior, — a model middle-class man, an illus- 
tration of what industry, and energy, and integrity 
can effect. What the old Hebrew book says is true — 
the children of Baines, senior, were trained up in their 
father's steps. Mr. E. Baines, the present M.P. for 
Leeds, inherits not only his father's claim upon his 
native town, but his father's virtues ; and follows in 
his father's steps. 

The present M.P. for Leeds was born in the year 
1800, and married, in 1829, a daughter of Thomas 
Blackburn, Esq., of Liverpool ; was educated at Man- 
chester, and has been all his life connected with the 
journal of which I believe till lately he was the head. 
He is a J. P. and Deputy-Lieutenant for the West 
Riding of Yorkshire, and President of the Yorkshire 
Union of Mechanics' Institutions. He is also author 
of the " History of the Cotton Manufacture," a book 
which the late Sir Robert Peel, at a very critical 
period of his own history, found time to study with 
certainly more than average attention ; and of a Life 
of his father, still deserving circulation, and of which 



168 Independent Liberals. 

I believe some years ago there was a cheap edition 
published. If the youthful swells of the present day 
would read it, they would be all the better for its 
perusal, and the philosophical Eadical might also 
study it, as it would teach him how useful a school 
are the local institutions he would put down by his 
system of centralization. The memorial raised by the 
filial piety of the son was worthy the parent, and was 
such a work as should find a place in young men's 
libraries at the present day. If it is out of print, a 
cheap abridged edition would be found to contain 
some useful reading. 

It was late in life when Mr. Baines entered the 
House of Commons. He was first returned for Leeds 
in 1859. The election was honourable to himself and 
honourable to his native town. The true theory of 
representation is a burgess representing his own 
borough. Often a fitting man is passed over and a 
moneyed or titled stranger preferred. Out of his own 
borough, Mr. Baines had long been known and 
esteemed. Years ago there were fierce contentions in 
the land about education, about Maynooth, about the 
voluntary principle; and in the contest one of the 
most earnest, and one of the hardest hitters on the 
Dissenting side, was Mr. Baines ; and his work on the 
voluntary principle in education, and against Govern- 
ment interference, was deemed unanswerable by those 
of his own way of thinking. As a Sunday-school 
teacher Mr. Baines had practical experience of the 



Edicard Bai?ies. 169 

power of the voluntary principle in education. As 
a member of a Congregational churchy it had been de- 
monstrated to him how much purer and more po^Yerful 
Avere the ministrations of the Gospel messenger when 
he set forth on his Divine mission untrammelled by 
the fetters of the State ; and in a similar spirit and 
with a similar faith he would legislate for the body 
politic. And he is quite logical in this ; for if the 
voluntary principle can grapple with the spiritual 
wants of the day, surely it is sufficient for the removal 
of temporary and minor ills. Out of this religious 
faith has grown Mr. Baines^s political creed and 
career. The moment he became a member of the 
Legislature, he obtained a parliamentary committee to 
do away with what was called the Bible monopoly, a 
monopoly by which no one was allowed to print the 
Bible in England but the printers of the Universities 
of Oxford and Cambridge, and the printers to the 
Queen's Most Excellent Majesty. Nor does Mr. 
Baines rest his faith merely on a form of words. Not 
merely would he have the State retire from the field 
of labour where its presence is a doubtful benefit, but 
he would have an energetic voluntaryism occupy its 
place. Surely, whatever may be the nation's needs, 
there is that in the heart of the nation that can 
grapple with and overcome them all. He would raise 
-temperance societies to abolish drunkenness ; he 
would have educational societies disseminate that 
knowledge without which true civilization cannot 



170 Independent Liberals. 

exist ; and with the living faith of voluntary Chris- 
tianity he would clothe the land with Gospel life and 
light. His political creed is a hopeful one. He has 
faith in humanity^ which is dwarfed and poor indeed 
when taught to rely upon the aid and resources of the 
State^ but which is grand in its aspect and lofty in its 
aims if left to itself, to listen to and respond to the 
voice of duty and of God. Faith can do all things : 
it can move mountains ; it can shake the world. The 
State can offer but place and pay. The hireling seeks 
them alone and is content. Instead of raising men 
he degrades them. If he teaches, it is but mechani- 
cally; if he accepts the priest^s office, it is but for a 
bit of bread. It is only by love that religion can 
gain its trophies or win its way. As a practical poli- 
tician, Mr. Baines has interested himself chiefly with 
endeavouring to get the franchise in boroughs extended 
down to six-pound holders. That his argument on 
the subject was considered by the ministry as un- 
answerable is clear from the new Franchise Bill the 
session before last carried through the Commons. 
Strengthen the foundations of your political edifice, 
says Mr. Baines, widen the basis, include within it 
those whom you now exclude, make friends of those 
whom you treat as enemies ; and the time came 
when the labours of Mr. Baines and of Mr. Locke 
King produced their proper effect, and Liberals and 
Conservatives alike voted for Parliamentary Reform. 
Mr. Baines appears to have led a laborious life. He 



Henry Self J? age Winierhotham, Esq. 171 

has much the appearance of a student and a thinker. 
As an orator he is effective because he is painstaking 
and persevering; and if not the leader of orthodox 
Dissent in Parliament^, at any rate is accepted there as 
one of its most eminent representatives. His place 
is behind the Ministerial benches, and his support is 
always given their occupants. He has been nurtured 
in piu'e Whig principles, and cannot forget that to 
Lord John Russell we owe the repeal of the Test and 
Corporation Acts, Parliamentary Reform, and negro 
emancipation. Leeds, with its mighty industries and 
well-taught operatives, could have no better repre- 
sentative of its Liberalism and Dissent, — a Liberalism 
which means more than finahty, — a Dissent which is 
always thirsting after practical result. 

HENRY SELF PAGE WINTERBOTHAM, ESQ. 

(Stkoud — Dickenson, 2826; AVintehbotham, 2734; 
dorrington, 2180.) 

In the year 1793, while all true patriots were de- 
spairing of their country, and Mr. Pitt was blossoming 
fast into a furious anti- Reformer, Sir Richard Perryn, 
one of the judges of His Majesty^s Court of Exchequer, 
and a special jury, assembled in the ancient city of 
Exeter to try a poor Baptist parson for seditious 
words uttered while preaching a sermon in Plymouth 
on the previous 5th of November. Defendant was 
charged with having declared that the laws made at 
the Revolution " had been abused and brought into 



172 Independent Liher ah. 

disuse/' Actually it was sworn by some witnesses^ 
though denied by otbersj that he had saidj " I ap- 
prove highly of the Revolution in France/^ He had 
askedj " Why are your streets and poorhouses crowded 
with poor and your gaols with thieves^ but because of 
oppressive laws and taxes T' And besides^ he had 
actually the audacity to declare that the English " had 
as much right to stand up for liberty as they had in 
France ;" and to promulgate the unheard-of doctrine 
that His Majesty, good George III., as our fathers 
called him, who wished every child in his dominions 
might be able to read the Bible (it was a pity he 
neglected to teach it to his own children), "was 
placed upon the throne upon condition of keeping 
certain laws and rules, and if he does not observe 
them he has no more right to the throne than the 
Stuarts had/' In those times it was a perilous thing 
to talk in that strain. In a speech which was en- 
dorsed by all present, for it was concluded amidst 
vehement applause. Sergeant Rooke, the counsel for 
the Crown, implied that the defendant " had been 
guilty of blasphemy against the Majesty of heaven;'' 
and that such low-bred persons as himself and his 
hearers had no business to indulge in poUtical discus- 
sions, for when they do, said Rooke the lawyer, 
" they endanger the constitution under which they 
have long been happy, and which has been the envy 
of surrounding nations." After this the jury had an 
easy time of it, and found the defendant guilty. . Nor 



Henrij Self Pacje Ulnferbotham, Usq. 173 

was this all. The next clay the poor unfortunate 
Baptist parson was again placed in the dock for a 
similar offence. Sergeant Rooke was again the 
prosecutor^ and a verdict of guilty was returned by 
the same jury. The defendant had next to appear in 
London to receive sentence. Lord Kenyon, in the 
height of his judicial fame and wisdom^ and with a 
view to the preservation of our glorious constitution 
in Church and State^ adjudged him to two years^ im- 
prisonment, and a fine of one hundred pounds, for 
the first offence, and to a similar punishment for the 
second offence, besides, at the end of that term, com- 
pelling him to find surety for his good behaviour for 
five years, himself in £500, and two sureties in £200 
each. The name of this unfortunate victim of 
Georgian loyalty and prejudice was Winterbotham, 
and his grandson is now a prosperous equity draughts- 
man and conveyancer; and as M.P. for Stroud, by a 
speech delivered on the occasion of the debate on 
'Mr. Coleridge's Universities Test Abolition Bill, ob- 
tained at once an enviable Parliamentary reputation. 
As an able waiter in the English Independent well ob- 
served, his speech " was listened to with equal delight 
and surprise, the leaders on both sides paying him the 
compliment of marked attention. At its close it Avas 
felt — and indeed said — by Sir William Heathcote, that 
in Mr. Winterbotham the House had gained an addi- 
tion to its debating power, and the Dissenters to their 
influence in that assembly. lie spoke with case, self- 



174 Independent Liberals. 

possession, and wondrous emphasis both of voice and 
of action ; and in an address which occupied nearly- 
half an hour, put several new points which told well/^ 
Nor are we surprised at this eulogium. It is cer- 
tainly well deserved. It but expresses what all must 
feel. The talents and the principles of the grand- 
father have been handed down to, and inherited by 
the grandson. Society has got to be a little wiser 
than when good old George III. reigned. We honour 
the grandson, and put him in Parliament. Our grand- 
fathers put his grandfather in gaol. Let us be grateful 
to the brave men who suffered imprisonment, trans- 
portation, death, for English freedom. Let us see to 
it that in these lukewarm days we guard our sacred 
rights as valiantly as they. 

There are few more pleasant or agreeable men in the 
House than Mr. Winterbotham. There is nothing 
sectarian in his manner or appearance. With his 
cheerful smile you can scarcely fancy him to be a 
Chancery barrister at all. He has a smart and fashion- 
able air, looks young, is in stature rather small. 
He has no beard, and his hair is rather inclined 
to the colour which may be said to be sandy or 
golden, as the writer is of a poetic or prosaic tempera- 
ment. He comes from a commercial and manufac- 
turing centre where Dissent and Liberalism have long 
flourished. Mr. Poulett Thomson, one of our leading 
advocates of Free Trade, ere Cobden and Bright had 
taken the field, was representative of Stroud. Earl 



Henry Self Vacje Tfl/iferbofJican, Esq. 175 

Russell -was glad to fiud refuge there when he was 
ousted from Devoushire by its Tory landlords, and 
that ^Ir. Horsman has so long represented it is due 
rather to his early and celebrated attacks on ecclesias- 
tical abuses than to his more recent coquettings ^\\t\\ 
the discomfited politicians who in vain sought refuge 
in Cave Adullam, which unfortunately proved to be no 
place of shelter after all. Mr. Winterbotham became 
M.P. for Stroud in the year 1867, just as the session 
was about to terminate. He was opposed by a "Con- 
stitutionalist," in the person of a Mr. Dorriugton. 
The numbers were — Dorrington, 508 ; Winterbotham, 
570. The Constitutionalist party are now no more. 
Having, under the guidance of Mr. Disraeli, abandoned 
the constitution, they now take their stand upon the 
Church in danger. Is it not Mr. Tadpole who in 
"Coningsby" expresses his preference for a good Church 
in danger cry by the plea that it means nothing? 

For one thing Mr. Winterbotham is to be com- 
mended. In these shoddy days, as soon as Brown 
has made his fortune as a soapboiler, or Smith has 
become a successful speculator and alters his name to 
Smythe, somehow or other they find they had what no 
one gave them credit for the possession of — grand- 
fathers, and astonish the weak eyes of their poor rela- 
tions with coats of arms. In a work recently pub- 
lished on the House of Commons, a list of members is 
given, with an account of each, a little after the 
manner of Dodd. In the part devoted to each 



176 Independent Liberals. 

member;, space is left for the insertion of Ms coat of 
arms. Mr. Winterbotham leaves tbat a blanks and 
intimates that he bears none. We might expect this 
from the son of his grandfather ; but it is not always 
our reasonable expectations are realized. Mr.Winter- 
botham^s father was a banker at Stroud. He is the 
second son^ and was born March 2, 1837. He was 
educated at Amersham Grammar School, Bucks, an 
extinct Parliamentary borough, once represented in the 
Senate by the illustrious Algernon Sidney and the poet 
Waller. It is to be hoped as a boy the future M.P. for 
Stroud there imbibed somewhat of the spirit of the cele- 
brated martyr for liberty. At any rate, he has soon 
become a rising man on the popular side. At the 
London University he graduated with honours, and 
took his B.A. degree in 1856, and his LL.B. in 1859. 
At University College, to which place he went after 
leaving Amersham, he certainly led no idle life. In 
1858 he won the Hume Scholarship in Jurisprudence, 
and in 1859 the Hume Scholarship in Political 
Economy. A little while after he was elected Fellow 
of University College. In 1860 he was called to the 
bar by the Society of Lincoln's Inn. He travels the 
Oxford circuit. For the information of our lady 
readers, let us add that he is unmarried ; and like the 
great William Pitt, finds, at any rate for the present, 
in his country his wife. Wliether the country is the 
better for such extreme devotion is a question the 
writer on the present occasion declines to discuss. 



Joseph Coiven, Esq. 177 

JOSEPH COVVEN, ESQ. 

(Newcastle— CoxTEN, 7057; HaADL.vii, 6674; Hv:MMoyD, 2727.) 

Friday uights in the House of Commons are generally 
busy ones, I always tell the stranger to get his order 
or his name down on the Speaker^s lists on a Friday, 
as generally on that occasion there is a great deal of 
extra skirmishing. Members are anxious to unburden 
their breasts and to do their duty to their country. 
They seem to get thus a weight off their minds, and 
are the better prepared to enjoy their Saturday half- 
holiday and their Sabbath repose. On the night of which 
I write, however, it was clear that the miscellaneous 
sku-mishing would be by no means permitted. The House 
was intent on business — and very important business too. 
There was the Representation of the People Bill to 
be discussed in committee, and some five or six pages 
of proposed amendments to consider. My heart sank 
within me as I took up the paper. Considering that 
we don't live to the age of Methusaleh — considering 
that a Reform Bill had to be passed — considering 
that we were getting rapidly into June, said 1 
to myself, how are these amendments to be fully de- 
bated ? Who is sufficient for these things ? Foolish 
man — or person — for that is Mr. MilFs phrase, and I 
always like to talk like a great philosopher when I 
can — foolish person, replied I, that I am. Is not the 
House of Commons the concentrated essence of the 
wisdom of the nation, and cannot it do everything ? 

N 



178 Independent Li 

except^ as Lord Coke said_, make a man into a woman, 
or reverse the process and reduce the porcelain of crea- 
tion into common clay. Well, on the night in question 
I got a good idea as to how the House gets through its 
business. It had, I have said, a great deal to do, and 
it was very full indeed. There was Mr. Gladstone 
and the Liberal party, which had come down the tree 
" by particular desire^^ and ^' for one night only,^^ all 
around and about. There were the country gentle- 
men whose mission it is to resist the democratic spirit 
of the age, seated behind the then Chancellor of the 
Exchequer, who has played many parts in his time, but 
who did never such a strange trick as that of the ses- 
sion before last — that is, turning squires 

" Witli brains made clear 
By the irresistible strength of beer" 

into the supporters of household suffrage and a lodger 
franchise. His work was all the harder that he had to 
do it all himself. The only vacant seats when I entered 
the House were on the Treasury Bench. There was a 
sad lack of talent there. The harvest was bountiful, but 
the labourers were few. Well, as I have said, that 
night gave one a good idea of how the House could 
work. The first amendment discussed was that of 
Mr. Watkin, of Stockport, defining a dwelling-house 
for the purpose of the Act to consist of two rooms. 
To this a further amendment had been added by Mr. 
Pease, of Durham, requiring that the rooms should 
contain at the least sixteen hundred cubic feet of space. 



Joseph Cowp?i, Esq. 179 

and then the stream of talk began to flow. One of 
the first to protest against Mr. Watkin^s definition of 
a honse was Mr. Cowen, of Newcastle-on-Tyne, who 
told how in his own borongh there were 14,000 persons 
who would be disfranchised if the amendment were 
carried, and described feelingly how in Newcastle 
many a respectable working man and his wife occu- 
pied but one room till the growth of a family necessi- 
tated more accommodation. The honourable member 
had little to say — nor did he take long in saying it — 
but he was listened to with the utmost attention, as if 
Avords of wisdom dropped from his mouth. How was 
this ? Mr. Cowen is no professional orator — no 
barrister talking for a place — and at his time of life 
it cannot be that he is led away by the desire of 
fame and seeks the applause of listening senates to 
command. His appearance forbids our entertaining 
a supposition of the kind. He rises from his seat 
on the third bench, where he has been sitting by 
the side of Peter Taylor, and at once every eye 
is directed to him. It is known that he will not 
speak long, that he will not speak unless he has some- 
thing to say, that he represents a great constituency 
far away, and that though sprung from the ranks, 
such has been the integrity, the perseverance, the 
patriotism of his life, that in his own neighbourhood 
no man is received with more respect. Well, in the 
House of Commons there is the profoundest political 
equality, and in his place Mr. Cowen is listened to as 

N 2 



180 Independent Lihercds. 

attentively as if in his veins there ran the blue blood of 
our oldest families ; there was no attempt to cough him 
down^ no groans as when a Conservative Darby Griffith 
or a Protestant Whalley appears upon the stage. 
Nor did Mr. Cowen seem in the least degree em- 
barrassed by his peculiar situation. His speech 
was strong and clear^ with just enough of a Northern 
accent to give it individuality. He stood up firmly as 
a rock ; evidently he is no novice at public speaking, 
and though getting on for seventy — he was born in 
1800 — and crowned with grey hairs, his tall muscular 
frame and his big head denote a more than average 
amount of physical and mental strength. Of the 
former indeed he has already convinced the House. 
There is no man so regular in his attendance. In- 
deed, he may be termed the constant member. He 
assists Mr. Speaker in his devotions — he is there 
while private business is discussed, or petitions pre- 
sented, or notices of motion given. He listens to 
what is said on both sides of the House by honourable 
gentlemen. When others are dining he retains his 
seat — and when others have dined and have come 
back with livelier spirits in consequence, Mr. CoAven 
is there still, patient, unwearied, vigilant, like one of 
the lions in Trafalgar Square. Such are the sort of 
men we want in the House. His place is the proper 
one. Wilberforce used to say when the debate came 
to him, he just joined in it — that was all. That is 
the right way in the House of Commons, and that is 



Joseph Cow 671, Esq. ISl 

why ^Ir. Cowen has succeeded when he has spoken. 
Many a member has a speech ready, but the debate 
does not come to him, and he has no opportunity of 
delivering it. I knew of more than one instance on 
that very night in which an M.P. had determined to 
take part in the discussion, but somehow or other had 
no chance ; the front row of the Opposition was 
crammed with M.P.^s waiting to speak — who, alas, 
after all their preparation had to put their speeches 
into their pockets, and go home, to the great loss of 
the countiy in general, and the reporters in par- 
ticular. 

And here let me say Parliamentary attendance 
is not so easy a thing as at first sight it may appear. 
Some country people fancy it a fine thing to be a 
Parliament chap, and to sit in a big house in London 
with lots of great people, in the presence of a Speaker 
in a big wig and with a gold mace before him. Oh, 
my brother bumpkin, it is harder work than you 
imagine, especially when the weather is sultry, and 
it is pleasanter to be riding in Rotten Row, or lounging 
about the Parks. It is no joke breathing a House of 
Commons atmosphere terribly deficient in oxygen and 
ozone — from four or six till the twilight is gone, and 
the dim grey of morn is glimmering in the east. It 
is unpleasant to go to bed just as Smith's red carts 
with the papers are rushing along the Strand to catch 
the first down trains, and chubby red-faced milkmaids 
arc commencing the distribution of their highly 



182 Independent Liberals. 

adulterated and questionable beverage; or as tbe 
British operative patronizes his cup of '" early purl/^ 
But worst of all is it to hear Wishy succeed Washy 
with his everlasting small talk^ and to split your skull 
(I mean metaphorically) in the vain endeavour to 
extract one particle of sense out of that waste of 
words^ one needle out of that stack of hay. A lawyer 
may do this for the sake of office ; a vain man be- 
cause he is ambitious ; a party politician because he 
is sure of his reward ; but the case is very different 
with a man like Mr. Cowen, who belongs to the ad- 
vanced Liberals^ who is independent of party — who 
has nothing to wish for or hope from it ; who can 
gain nothing but the reward of his conscience, and 
the pleasure which springs from the faithful and la- 
borious discharge of duty. 

MR. ALDERMAN LUSK. 

CFiKSBUE-Y—ToRiiENS, 13,159; LusK, 12,503; O'Malley, C, 6137 ; 
Cox, L., 1238.) 

At the last unreformed election, Finsbury had a popu- 
lation of 387,278, and as many as 22,530 electors. 
There was a severe contest for the honour of repre- 
senting it in Parliament. Five Liberals were in the 
field (the Conservatives dared not put in appearance ; 
ihey had not, and they have not now, a chance). 
The successful candidates were Mr. Torrens, a well- 
known literary man, and IMr. Alderman Lusk. It is 



Mr. Alderman LusJc. 1S3 

of the latter gcutleman we propose to speak. He is 
one of the many examples of which the metropolis is 
full of what may be clone by perseverance^ patience, 
and prudence. He came to London poor, he is now 
rich ; unknown, he is now one of the most influential 
and respected of its leading citizens. Few men have 
had a more successful commercial or political career. 

Mr. Lusk was born in Ayrshire in 1813. He lost 
his father, who was a farmer, very early in life, aud 
had to trust wholly to his own energies and abilities ; 
but his mother was a very superior woman, and to 
her the son was much indebted for advice, encourage- 
ment, and example. As the eldest of a large family, 
he had soon to leave home to make his way in the 
world, and he began life as an active lad behind the 
counter in a little northern town. To a certain ex- 
tent all Scotch lads are educated and ambitious, and 
Andrew Lusk aimed at something higher than pro- 
vincial reputation. He came to London, tried re- 
porting and writing for newspapers, and then decided 
to devote his energies entirely to trade. If we are 
to judge by the result, the decision was a wise one. 
Fortune smiled on the young Scotchman bravely 
fighting the battle of life. He became a shipowner 
and provision merchant. In due time he was elected 
to represent the ward in which he lived in the Court 
of Common Council. Four years afterwards he was 
chosen to fill tlie office of sheriff to the City of Lon- 
don. He was then elected Alderman, and, as we 



184 Independent LiheraU. 

have already said^, M.P. In tlie promotion of several 
important commercial undertakings Mr. Lnsk has 
taken a very prominent part. Amongst these we may 
mention the Commercial Union Assurance Company, 
and the Imperial Bank. Of the latter undertaking 
he was the chairman and ruling spirit from the first. 

Sydney Smith was once asked what were the duties 
of an archdeacon. To perform archidiaconal duties, 
was his reply. The answer left the questioner as 
wise as before. If asked what were the duties of a 
London alderman, we should reply after the manner 
of the worthy Canon of St. PauFs. One of the duties 
of an alderman, however, as we all know, is to take 
the chair at public meetings, and from a list lying 
before us we get an idea of what Alderman Lusk has 
done in this respect, of his truly Christian spirit, and 
of his desire to promote the best interests of his fellow- 
citizens. It appears in one year, 1864, he presided 
at the meeting of the HoUoway Ragged- school, the 
Commercial Travellers^ Benevolent Society Dinner, 
the Surrey Chapel Lectures, Seamen's Mission, Com- 
mercial-road ; Sunday-school, New North-road ; Lec- 
tures to Young Men (Church of England), Islington ; 
Sunday-school, St. John's-square (Wesleyan) ; Aged 
Pilgrims' Friend Society ; Sunday-school, James-street^ 
St. Luke's ; Ragged-school, Hoxton ; Ragged-school 
Golden-lane ; Sunday-school, Leather-lane ; Silver 
Trade Pension Society, Philanthropic Society, Pen- 
sions for Aged Newsvendors' Association ; Exeter 



Mr. Alder man Lush. 185 

Hall Lectutes, Young ]\Ien's Christian Association ; 
Christian Young Men-'s Association^ Islington Branch ; 
Spa-fields Sunday-school;, Bermondsey Sunday-school, 
Britannia-fields Sunday-school, Working Men^s Club, 
Golden-Lane ; Christian Relief Society, Barnsbury 
Hall ; Sermon-lane Ragged-school, Kingsland Ragged- 
school ; Fatherless Children's Asylum Election, Primi- 
tive Methodist Annual Meeting. Besides all this, 
the Alderman acted as steward at twelve hospital 
festivals, and assisted at various other Ragged and 
Sunday-school meetings. Surely this of itself is a 
fair amount of work, independently of the routine 
business which must take more or less of an Alder- 
man's time. 

In Parliament, Mr. Lusk, by his good sense and 
industry, soon obtained a respectable position. The 
first year he was put on a Gas Committee, and perti- 
naciously insisted on certain views which at the time 
were thought extreme, but which have since, after two 
years' thorough investigation of the subject, been vir- 
tually adopted. In 1867 he was an active supporter 
of the Bill for amending the Merchant Shipping Act. 
He suggested several of the most important amend- 
ments, clauses which the head of the Government con- 
fessed were for the benefit of the public in general, 
and that of sailors in particular. In his attendance 
he is most unremitting; during the last two sessions 
he was not absent from his place a single day, and his 
name appears in almost every discussion. As a Liberal 



186 Independent Liberals. 

he is always sound and staunch. He votes steadily 
with his party; is led away by no personal aims or 
petty crotchets of his own, and takes a deep interest 
in all questions connected with free trade and popular 
education. As a Presbyterian his views on the Irish 
Church may be depended on. He sees no danger to 
religion from the destruction of a system which more 
than anything else in Ireland has hindered the spread 
of the Gospel, and has alienated the mind of the 
people from England^s Protestantism and England^s 
rule. 

Much more may be said of Alderman Lush : he is 
a fan* speaker, he is in the prime of life, he takes a 
pleasure in hard work. But besides, he has assigned 
to himself a special task, and that is, while others 
talk of the extravagance of Government, and on the 
hustings especially denounce our profligate expenditure, 
he practically endeavours, by moving amendments in 
Committee of Supply, to reduce that expenditure and 
curtail that extravagance. This is no easy matter; 
financial reform is always, as a matter of fact and not 
of theory, unpopular in the House of Commons. We 
all like to be generous and liberal at other people's 
expense. All men like Hume, or Williams of Lam- 
beth, are unpopular, simply because they con- 
tend, bit by bit and in detail, for economy with 
respect to national afiairs. Great orators rarely appear 
as financial reformers when there is a discussion on 
the estimates. In matters of figures there is no room 



j\lr. Alderman Lusk. 187 

for oratorical display ; besides^ the discussion comes ou 
at unseasonable hours, when few Members are present 
except the Government subordinates whose duty is 
not to speak, but to vote. It is much to the 
credit of Alderman Lusk that since he has been a 
Member of Parliament not a vote of supply has passed 
in his absence, whether taken at the hour sacred to 
dinner^ or at the equally inconvenient small hours. 
Almost alone, there sits the Alderman, as if he were 
administering justice at the Guildhall, and as if the 
small band seated on the Treasury Benches voting 
away millions of money in the twinkling of an eye, 
were so many delinquents awaiting sentence. It 
really is a disgrace to the Liberal party that he is not 
better supported. It is all very fine to say that it is 
no use nibbling at details. Our answer is that if the 
Liberal Members, as guardians of the national ex- 
chequer, made up their minds unanimously to nibble 
at details in preference to supporting abstract resolu- 
tions, many a poor man^s heart would be lighter, and 
many a poor man^s home happier. As it is, the Queen''s 
Taxes are often the straw which breaks the cameFs 
back. All honour then be given to financial Re- 
formers ! The poor man's true friend is such an M.P. 
as Alderman Lusk. 



1S8 Independent Liher ah. 

SIR FRANCIS CROSSLEY. 

(Yorkshire W. R., North — unopposed.) 

The "West E-iding of Yorkshire is the parliamentary- 
blue ribbon. A king can make a belted knight, but 
it is not in the province of king or queen to create 
any man, however gifted, knight of the shire for the 
West Hidings It returned Wilberforce, and struck 
the knell of the slave trade. It returned Henry 
Brougham, and inaugurated the triumph of Keform. 
By its return of Richard Cobden, in 1847, all England 
felt that free trade had been secured. To canvass 
the West Biding a man must have a considerable 
amount of spare time, and energy, and cash, and if 
he be an unknown man, even these will fail him in 
the hour of trial. At the last election of Wilberforce, 
in 1807, upwards of 23,000 persons voted. The poll 
was kept open for fifteen days, and the costs of the 
contest were estimated at half a million. Elections 
are not quite such costly aifairs as they were, but they 
are still far too expensive and wearying ; the conse- 
quence is, the public have but a limited choice. People 
select not the best man, but the best man with cash. 
In 1852 the registered electors for the West Biding 
were 37,319. It is not easy to reach this mass of 
people — a people perhaps less dominated over by land- 
lords than any constituency in the kingdom — for little 
more than four per cent, of them live by agriculture. 
The candidate, it is evident, must be well known — he 



Sir Francis Crossley. 189 



must have money, for that is a sine qua non iu a West 
Ricliug clectiou — he must have braius, for in York- 
shii'e people mostly have big heads — and his politics 
must be popular, for as the aristocracy send their 
sons and scions into Parliament to preserve the go- 
verning power in their own hands, it is evident that 
the democracy when they have the chance will expect 
their candidate to do battle on their behalf. Now 
with all these conditions Sir Frank Crossley complies. 
By honest labour and the exercise of his brains he 
has got to be where he is. He is a representative 
man. In our villages and towns there are many such, 
but they have not chosen the better path. They 
have become intemperate or dissipated, they have 
missed the tide, which taken at the flood, leads on to 
fortune, and they have listened to the Circe voices 
wiiich wreck men^s careers and ruin menu's souls. 
All along our land they lie in swinish repose, the 
men who might have won for themselves fame and 
power, and conferred benefits untold on their fellows. 
If they have become rich, with ineffable littleness they 
have turned against the class from whence they 
sprung, and have vainly endeavoured to ape the 
fashions of those by whom they are justly derided 
and despised; but it is chiefly under the cloud of 
adverse circumstances that the capabilities which lie 
hidden in all men, as much in the Saxon peasant as iu 
the Norman lord (for wonderful is the generosity of 
naturej; are obscui'cd and blotted out. Of too many 



190 Indepen den t Liberals. 

it may be said; in the language of Gray, language 
likely to be applicable to large masses to the end of 
the chapter^ that 

" Cliill penury repressed their noble rage, 
And froze the genial current of the sonl." 

Happily^ in Frank Crossley^s case the " chill penury" 
of the poet existed only in a comparative degree^ as 
contrasted with the wealth he and his family were in 
time to attain^ and was soon turned into a genial af- 
fluence. Happily,, we say, but it is not always that 
affluence has a genial effect ; it acts on some as an 
east wind, and withers up all the graces of human 
character. Some men it altogether ruins. God 
grants them their desire, but sends leanness to their 
souls. If they were Dissenters they become High 
Church, and sneer at the conventicles. If they were 
Liberals, they become Conservatives, and think Lord 
Derby the most sagacious politician under the sun. 
If they have poor relations they despise and cut 
them; they treat them as Jeames de la Pluche did 
poor Mary Ann. " Once for all," as that distinguished 
individual informed the Lady Angelina, " once for all, 
suckmstances is changed betwigst me and er; it^s a 
pang to part with her, says I, my fine hi^s filling with 
tears ; but part with her I must." 

As an active philanthropist Mr. Frank Crossley was 
well and widely known. Halifax, which he first re- 
presented in Parliament, and where his manufactory is 
situated, bears witness to his munificence. These Lan- 



Sir Francis Cross! CI/. 191 

cashire and Yorkshire people^ when they make money, 
make it not as most of us do in petty fractions, by hard 
and unremitting industry, but on a grand scale. And 
they spend it on an equally grand scale. Go to Scar- 
borough and see the expenditure of these men ; it quite 
pales our London extravagance; fortune has been liberal 
to them, and they are liberal to all around. No ladies 
are so splendidly dressed, so expensively educated, 
so well provided with handsome equipages, and the 
other outward signs of wealth, as their wives and 
daughters. And the wealth they have freely won, 
they freely distribute; charity finds in them willing 
friends; misfortune rarely appeals to them in vain. 
If the town in which they reside requires a literary 
institution, arboretum, or a park, they are not back- 
ward in giving it. A thousand pounds or two is of 
little consequence to them. And thus Mr. Brown 
gives Liverpool a free library, or Mr. Strutt presents 
Derby with an arboretum, or Mr. Frank Crossley be- 
stows on Halifax a free park. And we all admire the 
generosity, and feel that such use of wealth — to the 
credit of our great merchants and manufacturers be 
it written — is by no means rare. For the successors 
of the Medici we have to look now-a-days to the mer- 
chants and manufacturers, who, in defiance of Mr. 
Ruskin, have become rich. 

As a politician. Sir Francis Crossley may be defined 
as belonging to his class. He is a manufacturer, not 
a landlord ; and he represents a manufacturing, not an 



192 Independent Liberals. 

agricultural constituency. It is just sucli men we 
want in the House of Commons. Men wlio have no 
connexion with trade and commerce are sure to make 
a mess of it when they come to legislate respecting 
such matters. For such matters practical men 
are required. " It appears/' said a late writer in the 
Times, " a statement was published a few months 
back to the effect that a large trade might be 
opened up by a short land route from our Indian 
possessions to the western frontier of China^ and 
the project excited very favourable attention among 
the commercial classes in London and the pro- 
vinces. Any one glancing at a map of Asia will be 
struck with the proximity we have already attained to 
China by means of our acquisitions in Pegu. From 
the port of Rangoon our territory extends towards 
China a distance of 250 miles. We then come to the 
territory of the King of Burmah_, and across this, which 
is also about 250 miles in width, we come to the 
Chinese frontier town of Esmok. We are thus brought 
into direct communication with that people almost at 
our own doors, the whole of the navigation via Singa- 
pore and the Chinese Sea would be saved, and we 
should, moreover, reach a class of the population with 
whom we could never otherwise come in commercial 
contact, even if our political relations with the Chinese 
Government were of the most unrestricted and cordial 
character. What, then, is the difficulty? The first 
idea likely to occur is that the King of Burmah would 



Sir FrcDicis Crossley. 193 

throw obstacles in our way. Such, however, is not 
the case. The King of Burmah seems to understand 
commercial interests better than some English states- 
men, for he is represented to be friendly to anything 
that will promote traffic through his dominions. Ap- 
parently there is no difficulty except the old one. Our 
Foreign Office are not fond of new questions, and least 
of all of commercial questions. The Leeds Chamber of 
Commerce recently memorialized the Government on 
the subject. They represented its important bearing 
on the interests not only of our home manufacturers, 
merchants, and shipowners, but of our traders in all 
parts of India. The Chambers of Commerce of Brad- 
ford, Halifax, Huddersfield, and Liverpool had previ- 
ously made similar representations. The reply has 
been such as to damp as far as possible all effort in the 
matter. Nothing was required but a civil negotiation 
with the King of Burmah, which the Government alone 
can make, and that in any future diplomatic arrange- 
ments with the Chinese authorities the town of Esmok 
should be recognised as a legal place of trade. Lord 
John Russell, however, thinks that ^ much incon- 
venience ' might arise from such a ' novel ' proposition. 
Moreover, it would be ' impossible to protect British 
trade at so inland a city,' or ' to exercise due control 
over British subjects.' Next to the possibility of any- 
thing that might cause ' inconvenience' to the Foreign 
Office, the idea of allowing 'British subjects' to run 
M-ithout leading-strings has always been most distasteful 

o 



194 Independent Liberals. 

to tliat department. The Chambers of Commerce have 
likewise been furnished with a hint that they know 
nothing about the true interests of trade^ since the 
very measure for which they are now praying, under 
the idea of extending it, would only bring it into 
jeopardy, ^ Redress for any wrong done in such a 
remote quarter as Esmok/ observes his Lordship, ' could 
in all probability only be obtained by applying pressure 
at places more accessible, and so placing in jeopardy 
the more important interests of British trade on the 
seaboard of China/ ^' Gentlemen of rank in the 
Government departments do not see — as people con- 
nected with trade and commerce see and feel — the 
importance of little things — the advantages of even 
the slightest reduction in taxation ; that where the 
farmer feeds and maintains ten families, the manufac- 
turer, or large employer of labour, can do the same 
for a hundred, and that the primary care of a states- 
man or legislator should be that, in every way possible, 
the taxes on industry should be annihilated and the 
sources of labour set free. Gentlemen fail to under- 
stand these things as great employers do. The latter 
have not had their fair share in Parliament. A 
change is taking place in this respect. It is time it 
were so, for so eager is the rivalry of commerce, that 
it is quite impossible we can maintain our position at 
the head of the world^s markets unless we reduce our 
national expenditure, sweep away all vexatious imposts 
and unnecessary regulations from our statute book^ and 



Sir Francis Crosslei/. 195 

give the working man and his master all the help we 
can. If we do not do this, America, France, Germany 
— where the cost of living is less — will day by day 
surpass us, and we shall decline, as did Tyi'e and Sidon 
in days gone by. It is for this reason that men like 
Sir Fi'ancis are so useful in the House of Commons, 
and need to have their number increased. As to 
dogmatic politics, of course he is decidedly an 
advanced Liberal. We know what are the politics 
of his class ; the spread of education, the protec- 
tion of the ballot, and the separation of Chui'ch and 
State. The temperance world find in him an uncom- 
promising champion, and the dissenting religious public 
is familiar with his face when May arrives, and Exeter 
Hall is thronged. Dissenting ministers who have 
gone down to Halifax to preach have told us of their 
surprise at finding an M.P. and a rich and great 
manufacturer acting as a clerk, and giving out the 
hymns. 

In the House of Commons Sir Francis Crossley is 
easily discernible. He is a strong, well-looking man, 
in the very prime of life — just such a powerful-look- 
ing man as you may often see in the streets in fustian - 
and his black beard and white waistcoat render him 
conspicuous from afar. You can see Sir Francis is not 
a man to be daunted — has true Anglo-Saxon capacity 
for work and true Anglo-Saxon decision of charac- 
ter — if the time comes when statesmanship will be 
synonymous with administrative capacity, such a num 

o2 



196 Independent Liberals. 

will be in request. Surely it is no bad test of a man^s 
qualification for office^ that as a manufacturer, or 
merchant, or shipowner, he should have organized and 
carried out successful operations in many lands and 
amongst many men. Surely such an education is at 
least equal to that which can be acquired by contact 
with grooms and stable-boys, and game-keepers, and 
ballet- gu4s, and the toadies who always prey upon 
elder sons. Surely some of our ablest legislators — the 
men most potent in the Commons — are men of Sir 
t. Crossley's class. The admirers of our aristocracy 
tell us that it is the finest race in the world. You 
would not get this idea from a glance at the Commons. 
There are few more puny -looking men than Lord 
John Hussell. You pass Lord Stanley in the street 
without giving him a second look. We know more 
than one lord in the House who, all curled and scented, 
and bedizened, reminds you rather of a baboon than 
a man. In Sir Francises pale and full, yet determined 
face, you read that his life has been one of hard en- 
deavour ; that he has had little time to waste. As an 
orator, you see that he is in earnest ; that he has no 
words to spare ; that he is not a professional talker — 
that curse of our age and country — and that when he 
has said what is in him, he will not detain you one 
moment longer. Hence it is seldom that he speaks in 
the House of Commons ; but he is regular in his at- 
tendance, and votes always — according to the opinion 
of his constituents — ou the right side. 




CHAPTER V. 

THE PROTESTANT PAETY. 

MR. NEWDEGATE. 

(I!^0RTH Warwickshire — Newdegate, 4545 ; Davenport, 4374 ; 
MuNTz, L., 3406; Flower, L., 3317.) 

HERE was a time "when people believed in 
protection to native industry — which, stripped 
of all its verbiage, meant that the consumer 
was to be taxed for the benefit of the producer. This 
theory, as regards agriculture, did not come into opera- 
tion till the close of our gr^at war with France. 
War prices had raised the prices of provisions, and 
every one turned farmer, deeming agriculture the 
most lucrative of all callings. Orator Hunt, then a 
young man, tells us how the farmers of his day lived 
riotously — riding the finest of horses, and drinking the 
costliest of wines, and how hundreds of men turned 
farmers, who knew no more about farming than the 
man in the moon. Well, this golden age came to an 
end. When peace was made, bad times came for the 
landlords and the farmers ; the latter had sj^ent all 
tlicir money, and the former were in fear of not get- 



198 The Protestant Party. 

ting their rents. At tliat time the Parliament of 
England was almost exclusively a landlords^ Parlia- 
ment. They made the laws, and, as all men will do, 
they took care of themselves. The proper course 
would have been, as rents went up artificially in time 
of war, with the return of peace to have lowered the 
rents. But this did not suit the landlords. Instead, 
they made a law to keep up the rents by forbidding 
the importation of foreign corn, except when corn had 
reached starvation prices. The public rather laughed 
at political economy then (we know, for instance, 
Charles Fox could never read Smithy's " Wealth of 
Nations ^^), but they knew enough to feel that such a 
prohibition was injurious to themselves. The people 
were very indignant, yet the minority in Parliament 
opposed to it was miserably small. Sir Samuel 
Romilly, in his diary of the 6th of March, 1815, says, 
" Great outrages have been committed against the 
members of both Houses of Parliament, who are sup- 
posed to be friends to the Corn Bill, The populace 
broke into the houses of the Lord Chancellor and of 
Mr. Robinson, and destroyed part of their furniture. 
Other houses were, too, attacked — such as Lord 
Darnley^s, Lord Ellenborough's, and others.^^ Again, 
next day we read, " The same outrages and riots in 
different parts of the town, and a few persons killed 
or wounded by the soldiery .^^ Miss Cornelia Knight 
remarks — " The people are discontented with the Corn 
Bill, and write horrid things on the walls, such as 



Mr. Neivdcgaie. 199 

' Bread or Blood / ' More Bellinghams •' ' Bread, or 
else the Regent's head/ " Nevertheless the Bill 
became law, and as England, year by year, grew less 
agricultural and more manufacturing, the dwellers 
in towns began to perceive that not only were they, 
in consequence of the Act of Parliament, paying more 
for their bread than otherwise would have been the 
case, but that, besides, we were compelled to refuse 
to trade with an immense population in Europe and 
America, who would be capital customers, if we would 
take their corn in exchange for our cotton goods. This 
state of things lasted till the days of Chartism, the 
potato disease, and the Anti-Corn Law League, and 
then the artificial impediment to trade, and national 
plenty and well-being, was swept away. How great 
has been the gain has been very apparent in severe 
winters, when the poor have suffered frightfully, when 
iinder the old system we should have had bread riots, 
appeal to physical force, the lower classes excited and 
revengefulj the upper alarmed and ill at ease. As it 
is, we have nothing of the kind to record. There 
often is, it is true, much suffering, but that suffering 
is bravely borne by the poor, and fully and warmly 
sympathized with by the rich. At Birmingham, or 
Manchester, even in Coventry, there has been no agita- 
tion of an alarming character. This arises simply from 
the fact that the poorest feci that they have not to im- 
pute their sufferings to class legislation. Lately, Avithin 
ten months, corn, in mere grain or flour, costing no 



200 Tlie Protestant Party. 

less a sum than 23,862^916/. was imported into these 
islands from America^ Russia,, and Egypt. If this 
quantity be reduced into quartern loaves^ how great 
the number ! And then recollect that all these hun- 
dreds of millions of loaves have been eaten in excess 
of what would have been eaten if the old prohibitive 
Corn Laws had survived to these times. To this bread 
we must add all the meat from cattle from foreign 
parts, and then recollect all this has gone to the poor, 
for the rich are never in danger of starvation ; and 
then we get but a faint idea of the blessings of free 
trade, as a means of giving to one country its superfluity 
in exchange for that other country ^s superfluity, 
and of building up all the nations of the earth into a 
common brotherhood. When we think of these things 
we are not surprised to find how rare is a genuine 
protectionist. Yet such, undoubtedly, was Mr. Newde- 
gate, who sat side by side with his grey-haired and 
venerable friend and colleague, the late Mr. Spooner, 
on the third bench of the Opposition. Like the latter 
gentleman, he has been very much abused by certain 
parties, merely because he sticks to his principles, and 
will not move with the times. Mr. Newdegate does 
not believe in progress, thinks the former days were 
better than these, and would have England as she 
was in those days when Pitt, the pilot, weathered the 
storm. Mr. Newdegate forgets that what is good for 
the country at one time is bad at another; that the 
of Pitt and Fox are gone, and that their politics 



Mr. Neicdegate. 201 



iudustry and life to maintain ; that we have a people 
becoming increasingly educated ; and that we must 
adapt the legislation of modern times to the require- 
ments of modern society rather than to exploded pre- 
judices. Now-a-days a manufacturer thinks himself 
as great a man as a landlord,, and the operative consi- 
ders himself as good as his master. The operative and 
the manufacturer may be wrong, but as you cannot 
make them think so, it is vain to treat them as if 
they were conscious of an inferior position. In acting 
as if they were, Mr. Newdegate wars with a progress 
he cannot resist, and makes himself very unpopular as 
well. At one time there was a talk of ousting him 
from the representation of North Warwickshire. When 
the freehold land societies commenced their career, 
their aim was chiefly (they have since become a pro- 
fitable investment) to give men votes. The working- 
men of Birmingham joined them in large numbers, 
and the Liberals of that district were delighted at the 
idea of unseating their Tory members. However, 
Messrs. Spooner and Newdegate were too strong for 
them, and remain secure. An important lesson is 
tauglit by this — viz., how desirable it is that politicians 
should live in mutual harmony, and bear and forbear. 
Mr. Newdegate represents North Warwickshire, yet 
Mr. Bright represents its chief town. Of course jNIr. 
Bright will tell you he represents public opinion ; but 
surely Mr. Newdegate represents public opinion as 



202 The Protestant Party. 

well. Tlie one lias a party to back him in the same 
way as the other. It is true every man thinks himself 
in the right ; but when decent men differ so much as 
they do on matters of science^ or religion^ or politics, 
we must feel that it becomes no man to be high- 
minded, or arrogant, or dogmatic. Both Mr. Newde- 
gate and Mr. Bright are too apt to forget this, and 
scold their opponents instead of arguing with them. 
Mr. Newdegate generally speaks in that way. I con- 
sider him a very irritating speaker ; he never seems to 
think that other people can by any means think they 
are right, if their opinions do not square with his own. 
As a speaker he is wonderfully one-sided. He may not 
be narrow-minded, but he seems so to you. With his 
tall, thin figure, he looks it ; and as he stretches out his 
long arms, and drops his bony hands, you feel inclined 
to agree with West, who tells us that there is a great 
deal of character in the way men carry their hands. 
Mr. Newdegate is by no means a pleasing speaker. He 
does not hesitate or stammer, nor is his voice bad, but 
he does not fill you with admiration, nor does he carry 
you away with him. Nor do you feel inclined, like 
Bottom^s Duke, to exclaim — "^ Let him roar again — let 
him roar again." The country gentlemen may have 
all the learning, but they have not all the eloquence 
of the House. Mr. Newdegate^s oratory is of the cha- 
racter which may be termed bucolic. You can easily 
fancy him babbling of green fields, of fat oxen, of 
draining on a large scale, or discoursing learnedly, 



Mr. Neiodegate. 203 

and beautifully^ and bountifully on the importance of 
nianm-e to tlie farmer, and of its various kinds, and 
their various properties. You can easily faney him in 
scarlet, a bold rider across country, and stopping for 
nothing in the shape of fence, or brook, or five-barred 
gate, or feasting his tenantry on rent-days, like a fine 
old English gentleman, all of the olden time. You 
would expect from him a strict regard to the decencies 
and conventionalities of society, a regular subscription 
to the jSTational Schools, and a devout attendance at 
his parish church — but that is all. As to looking at 
all sides of a question — as to his supposing that there 
is more than one side to look at, or that his one side 
may possibly be the wrong one — no one who knows 
Mr. Newdegate 'would ever deem him guilty of such a 
thing. From the speeches of such a man you would 
expect no display of literary ability, no wide induction, 
no skilful marshalling of facts and figures, no chain 
of argument subtlely contrived and skilfully measured 
out, no wit that moves to laughter, nor pathos that 
stirs to tears. Mr. Newdegate^s oratory — it must 
be confessed even by his warmest friends — is conspicu- 
ous by a singular absence of all these qualifications, 
so desirable to a public speaker. Ai'guing hypo- 
thetically we may go further, and say, to such a man 
the advocacy of Conservative and High Church prin- 
ciples by one not of an old English landed family, by 
one whose political antecedents do not favour the idea 
tiiat he was trained up a Pharisee of the strictest sect 



204 The Protestant Parti/. 

of the Pharisees^, by one remarkable for the ambiguous 
and cloudy nature of his speeches on the gravest 
political questions of the day, by one who impresses 
you with an idea rather of the graceful agility with 
which he can explain away, than of the earnestness 
with which he can battle for a party — would be par- 
ticularly unpleasant ; and the result would be, that 
rather than rally under such a leader, he, Mr. Newde- 
gate, would fight the battle alone. All acquainted 
with the political world know such to be the case, and 
that Mr. Newdegate is one of the heads of the Tory 
few who deprecate Mr. Disraeli^s submission to the 
spirit of the age, and repudiate his policy almost as 
much as the men of Manchester themselves. 

Mr. Newdegate's career, or, rather, such part of it as 
concerns the general public, is soon told. He was born 
in 1816, and is the son of the late Charles Newdigate- 
Newdegate, of Harefield-place, Middlesex. In 18 i3 
he was returned for North Warwickshire, and ever 
fallowed in the wake of his Church and Protestant 
colleague, Mr. Spooner. Since then Mr. Newdegate 
has taken a more prominent position — a position in 
which he has contrived in a singular manner to obtain 
for himself the utmost amount of parliamentary oppo- 
sition and respect. At one time, he was reported to 
have purchased and carried on at his own expense the 
Press newspaper. He has thus made pecuniary sacri- 
fices for his party, and let us hope will not be for- 
gotten if their hour of triumph should arrive. 



George II. WhaJley, Esq. 505 

GEORGE H. WHALLEY, ESQ. 

(Peterborough — "Wells, 1289 ; Whalley, 1124 ; H-^xkey, 837 ; 
Wrenfordsley, C, 159.) 

Once upon a time the writer was standing in the 
lobby of the House of Commons in close propinquity 
with a young man from the country^ who evidently 
had never been in that august locality before. As 
one popular M.P. after another appeared our young 
friend grew vastly excited, much to the annoyance of 
the genii loci — the police, who like the deities in 
Olympus approve 

" The depth, but not the tumult of the soul." 
One of them was particularly indignant and observant 
of our friend, whose enthusiasm seemed to know no 
bounds. X.Y.Z. — for we will call him such — could 
stand it no longer. Said he, placing his official hand 
upon the stranger's shoulder, " My young friend, if 
you can't control your feelings, you had better go out- 
side.'^ Now Mr. Whalley can't control his feelings, 
but unfortunately for the cause he upholds he is 
inside, and will remain so as long as Peterborough 
returns him as her M.P. 

If the possession of moral courage constitutes great- 
ness, Mr. Whalley has few equals, and no superiors, 
in Parliament or out A good fellow is occasionally 
described as a brick, but Mr. AVhallcy is a rock. 
Argument is lost on him ; of ridicule he is uncon- 
scious ; auger simply provokes his pity. No man is 



206 The Protestant Party. 

oftener on his legs in the House^ no man is seldomer 
heard. Hume tells us all the sciences have a re- 
lation to one another. In a similar way^ in Popery 
Mr. "Whalley finds the ultima ratio — the final cause 
of every disaster under heaven, including of course 
railway accidents, the cattle plague, the Schleswig- 
Holstein war, the Fenian conspiracy, a war in New 
Zealand, and a City panic. Hence is it that there is 
always an occasion for him to rise, whatever may be 
the subject of debate. Popery is to him the tree of 
evil, whose roots extend to every land, and whose 
branches darken and poison the atmosphere of the 
globe. An aged nobleman, not long deceased, was in 
the habit, if anything went wrong in the fashionable 
world, of asking, " Who is she '?''^— believing firmly, but 
ungallantly, that no mischief would exist unless a 
woman was at the bottom of it. To the Pope, Mr. 
Whalley assigns that bad pre-eminence. At every 
turn he takes he sees that incarnate evil. Destroy 
Popery and the world will be at peace, and the lion 
will lie down with the lamb, and the poor^s rates 
will be diminished, and, better still, the income-tax 
will be reduced. Our readers may have forgotten the 
name of Mr. T. Fitzgerald. If we may credit the 
Loyal Effusion in " Rejected Addresses,^^ his style of 
reasoning seems to have supplied Mr. Whalley with a 
model, which he has faithfully imitated. He asks — 

" Wlio burnt (confound Lis soul) tlie houses twain 
Of Covent Garden and of Drury Lane ? 



George H. Wliallef/, Esq. 207 

WTio, wliile the Britlsli squadron lay off Cork, 
(God bless the Regent and the Duke of York !) 
With a foul earthquake ravaged the Caraccas, 
And raised the price of dry goods and tobaccos ? 
"Who makes the quartern loaves and Luddites rise ? 
Who fills the butchers' shops with large blue flies ? 

Well; it is thus that Mr. Whalley reasons^ and it is thus 
in sober prose he declaims, or appears to declaim^ for 
the chances are if Mr. Whalley speaks half an hour 
you will never hear a dozen consecutive words all the 
time. His appearance is always the signal for a 
storm. It is amusing to see him biding his oppor- 
tunity, — his dark head and white waistcoat are con- 
spicuous from afar. Up he rises ; yet, alas, he fails 
somehow or other to catch the Speaker^s eye. He is 
not disappointed. He knows that in time his turn 
will come — the Speaker must see his white waistcoat. 
Another speech is made ; up again is the white waist- 
coat. Alas ! again, burdened and unrelieved, to sit 
doAvn. The House thins oflF — members are at dinner. 
The hour is come, and behold Mr. Whalley rising 
from the back benches on the Liberal side. Groans 
loud and deep are heard everywhere. Apparently 
Mr. Whalley heeds them not. In vain docs the storm 
of disapprobation rage — in front, behind, on every 
side ; he has the testimony of an approving conscience 
M-itliin. Mr. Whalley is not a bad speaker ; he de- 
livers his opinions with a great deal of force and 
energy, and in his speech what lack of argument there 
may be is completely compensated foi' by vehemence 



208 The Protestant Parti/, 

of manner and exaggeration of language. Amidst the 
fiercest signs of imjaatience lie holds on his unfaltering 
way. He has, it is clear to him^ his duty to do, and 
that he will discharge, whether men smile or frown — 
whether they applaud or condemn. Generally, for 
some minutes not a word is audible ; you see Mr. 
Whalley wildly gesticulating. Perhaps you are per- 
mitted to hear a sentence, in which Popery is de- 
scribed in uncomplimentary terms, and then all is lost 
in the Babel of chaotic sounds. Cries of " Divide, 
divide — vide — vide \" spread from one side of the 
House to the other; then there is a lull; then comes 
a roar of groans, in which Liberals and Conservatives, 
who have by this time greatly dined, all gladly join. 
Eager Irish M.P/s cry " Question, question V Then 
above the storm is heard the full deep voice of the 
Speaker calling " Order, order,"*^ and perhaps for a 
few minutes, or till he has again aroused the an- 
tagonism of his audience, Mr. Whalley is permitted to 
proceed without interruption. My own opinion is, 
that Mr. Whalley thinks these exhibitions highly 
creditable to him. I believe he is unconscious of the 
ridicule he creates. My reason for arriving at this 
conclusion is, that on the nights when Mr. Whalley 
has been unusually ridiculous and sincere, he has 
generally had a lady to escort home from the House. 
Is Mr. Whalley a Jesuit in disguise ? Can he be a 
sound Protestant who makes Protestantism ridiculous ? 
Mr. Newdegate, who represents the old Church of 



George H, JJlialley, Esq. 209 

England anti-Popery party in tlie Honse — wlio has many 
a time and oft been cheered and upheld by Mr. 
Whalley^s voice and vote, implies as much ; and his 
ingratitude led to an appeal to the public, or rather 
to the editor of the Times, from the injured Whalley. 
The letter referred to was as follows : " Sir — The 
unprecedented attack made upon me in the debate 
on the Transubstantiation Bill this evening, I was 
prevented by the forms of the House from reply- 
ing to, and I have to rely upon your coiu'tesy to 
insert in the same paper in which the debate is re- 
ported the following observations : — Mr. Newdegate 
was not justified in imputing to me indifference to 
religious sentiment. Nothing that I have ever said 
or done can in the slightest degree justify such impu- 
tations. In such efforts as I have made to resist or 
expose the political action of the Romish priesthood, 
I have ever endeavoured to suppress everything that 
could give offence to religious sentiments honestly en- 
tertained, and I shall continue to act upon that prin- 
ciple. To impute to me on that account indifference 
to religious sentiments, without, as I assert, the 
slightest justification from any word or act of mine, and 
untrue as it is to the utmost degree, is in itself alike 
opposed to the courtesy of a gentleman and to the 
credit of whatever form of Christianity Mr. Newde- 
gate may possess." No wonder Mr. Whalley was in- 
dignant. To have doubts cast on his Protestantism — 
and by Mr. Newdegate, with whom he had so often 

p 



210 The Protestant Parti/, 

fought slioulder to shoulder — that was "the unkindest 
cut of all." It really was too bad to raise the ques- 
tion. Mr. Whalley not sincere in his Protestantism ! 
Wellj then^ sincerity has left the world. No one 
can doubt Mr. Whalley^s sincerity. It is only equalled 
by his indiscretion. He belongs to that numerous class 
who love not wisely but too well. 

On secular questions^ if such exist for Mr. 
Whalley_, he generally votes with the Liberals, by 
whom he is considered a good fellow, except where 
the Scarlet Lady is concerned, and then Bishop 
Corbet^s distracted Puritan, who exclaims — 

" I am not mad, most noble masters. 
But zeal and godly knowledge 
Have put me in hope 
To deal with the Pope 

As well as the best at College " — 

is sobriety itself compared with the member for Peter- 
borough, who may yet turn out a respectable M.P. if 
he will ignore the existence of the Roman Catholics. 
As I have said before, Mr. Whalley can speak very 
well. He is now in the prime of life — a man of 
very good temper — active and persevering. For a 
Jesuit in disguise he is not a bad-looking little man, 
though of a slightly Jewish cast of countenance. 

The world shall know something of its greatest men. 
Mr. Whalley was born at Gloucester in 1813. He 
was educated at University College, London, in the 
Literary and Philosophical Society of which his Pro- 



George H. Wlialley, Esq. 211 

testant zeal more than once led him into angiy col- 
lision with the Irish law students, of whom there were 
many belonging to the Society. In 1836 he married 
Anne, daughter of R. Attree, Esq., and was called to 
the bar at Gray^s Inn in 1839. He is a magistrate 
and deputy-lieutenant for Denbigh, and besides a 
magistrate for Montgomery and Carnarvon. In 1852 
he was high sheriff of his county. In the same 
year he was returned for Peterborough, in spite of 
very strong opposition on the part of the Earl Fitz- 
william, who is supposed to exercise much influence in 
that ancient city. Peterborough has a cathedral, from 
the top of which you could see over the fen country, 
and in old time tell of coming danger. So its mem- 
ber on his watch-tower discovers the faintest effort of 
Romanism, and calls on England to beware. Hap- 
pily, England, in spite of an unfaithful State Church, 
needs not the warning voice. A man who has eman- 
cipated himself is not likely to be a slave. Pro- 
testantism is safe as long as England guards and 
preserves her free press and pulpit. In his glorious 
dream the Bedford tinker represents Popery as tooth- 
less and in its dotage ; John Buuyai) was a wiser man 
than Mr. Whalley. 



p2 



CHAPTER VI. 

NEW MEMBERS. 



CHARLES REEDj ESQ. 

(Hackney— Reed, 14,785 ; Holms, 12,243 ; Butler, 6825 ; 
Homer, 2021 ; Dickson, 2575 ; Webb, C, 2669.) 

N religious and philanthropic circles no name 
is better known or held in higher honour 
than that of Reed. At Hackney livedo and 
in the east of London preached with a power and 
unction the memory of which has not yet passed away, 
Dr. Andrew Reed. Of his life and labours we need 
not speak here. In the battle ever being fought 
between good and evil_, right and wrong, God and the 
devilj he was a valiant soldier on the right side. 
Enriched with the legacy of his example, the sons 
have trodden in their father's steps. One has drawn 
to himself a large congregation in one of England-'s 
pleasantest watering-places, and another has long been 
one of the band who, to the honour of their age, find 
success in business and activity in public life, per- 
fectly compatible with philanthropic efibrt and Chris- 
tian zeal. It is of this son, Mr. Charles Reedj we 
write. 



I 



Charles Reed, Esq. 213 

In the Reform Bill lately carried^ one of the new 
boroughs called into existence is that of Hackney, 
comprising Bethnal- green, Cambridge-heath, Clapton, 
Dalston, De Beauvoir Town, Hackney, Haggcrstone, 
Homerton, Hoxton, Kingsland, Shacklewell, Shore- 
ditch, Stamford-hill, Upper Clapton, and portions of 
Spitalfields, Stoke Newington, and Victoria Park. It 
appears, some time before the new borough was 
called upon to exercise its privilege of returning two 
members to Parliament, the note of warning had 
been sounded, and strenuous preparations for the 
great event had been made. In compliance with a 
numerously signed requisition of electors, Mr. Charles 
Reed offered himself as a candidate. Long resident 
in the parish of Hackney, his opinions were pretty well 
known in the district. We may briefly say, however, 
here, that he expressed himself prepared to support 
" a more equitable distribution of seats than could be 
carried in the present House of Commons ;" that he 
had arrived at the conclusion, " though very reluc- 
tantly,'^ that for the free exercise of the suffrage the 
voter must have the protection of the ballot ; that he 
is " opposed to all compulsory exactions, and to the 
appropriation of public money for religious purposes.""' 
Mr. Reed further declared himself in favour of " strict 
economy in the various departments of the public 
service ;" he has " a strong conviction of the necessity 
for the extension of the principle of local sclf-goveru- 
ment;" "the national universities," he considers, "with 



214 New Members. 

. all their honours and emoluments^ should be thrown 
open to all_, without distinction of rank or creed/^ 
and in Ireland he would " support any measure for 
the impartial disendowment of all religious bodies/'' 
On the great question of education Mr. Reed says 
nothing ; but a glance at his active life will show tiat 
no one has worked harder for the education of the 
people than himself. A firm, yet moderate Dissenter, 
associated witb Churchmen as one of the committee 
of the Bible Society and in other ways^ it is clear, from 
his enormous majority, he received the support of the 
religious public whether of the church or the chapel. 

Mr. Reed is somewhere about forty-seven years of 
age, of ready speech, and a pleasant presence. All 
his life he has been a working man. He is now at 
the head of one of the oldest and largest type foun- 
dries in London, but in his youth, after a careful 
training at Hackney, and then at what is now Uni- 
versity College, but what was then the London 
University, he went down to Leeds, and was five 
years in a woollen manufactory in that town, com- 
mencing at the very bottom and working his way 
upwards, thus gaining a practical acquaintance witb 
the babits, and the wants, and the condition, and the ca- 
pacity of the industrious classes, eminently desirable in 
any one aiming to be a member of Parliament under 
the new dispensation inaugurated by the last Reform 
Bill. It is to be presumed at Leeds Mr. Reed 
found time for other, and, to a young man, more con- 



diaries Beed, Esq. 215 

genial occupation. We infer so from tlie fact that 
he married the youngest daughter of the late Mr. 
BaiueSj M.P.^ father of the present well-known 
]\Icmbcr for that great town. Leeds^ with its narrow 
streets, and tall chimneys, all day and night vomiting 
forth clouds of smoke, does not look much like a 
place to make love in, but as philosophers have pro- 
foundly remarked, human nature is much the same 
all the world over, and people fall in love and get 
married in Leeds as Avell as in Belgravia, as they did 
Avhen Noah told them the deluge was coming, or wh<3n 
Lord Derby made all England take what he described 
" as a leap in the dark." 

In 1842 Mr. Reed commenced business in the City 
of London. At once he appears to have become a 
distinguished member of its ancient corporation. It 
is to him is due the merit of getting the freedom of 
the City presented to Lord Clyde, Sir J. M'Clintock, 
the hardy explorer of the North-West passage, and 
Mr. Peabody, the friend of the poor. As one of the 
Corporation Mr. Reed was selected to be the deputy 
governor of the Irish Society, and in that capacity 
did much for education in Londonderry. Our readers 
A\'ill remember the gallant stand Mr. Reed made on 
behalf of Bunhill-fields, which he was at length 
enabled to save from the grasp of the Ecclesiastical 
Commissioners, who would have otherwise built over 
that truly consecrated ground. For his activity in 
this matter we hold the religious public to be under 



216 New Members. 

lasting obligation to Mr. Reed. As one of the con- 
servators of the river Thames Mr. Reed has also re- 
sponsible duties to perform. We may add here that 
he is one of the Deputy Lieutenants of the City, that 
he has been chairman of the Corporation Library, and 
is one of the leading members of that truly excellent 
establishment, the City of London School. 

At the age of twenty-six Mr. Reed was elected a 
Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries. Of his literary 
merits, the Life of his father recently published, and 
which rapidly reached a second edition, is a fair 
specimen. It is a book well known and liked in 
religious circles. For many years Mr. Reed has been 
an incessant writer, especially on topics connected 
with education. In his " History of the Irish Society^'' 
he evinced a capacity for historical research of no 
common order. For a twelvemonth, we believe, he 
was the editor of a well-known religious newspaper. 
In 1851, under the title of "Why Not?" Mr. Reed 
published a pamphlet in favour of a free library for 
the City of London. On the question of rating he 
was defeated ; but he still looks forward to the suc- 
cessful accomplishment of his scheme. Philanthropi- 
cally, Mr. Reed may be said to have devoted himself 
to the carrying out of his father^s plans. The Orphan 
Asylum, and the Institution at Earlswood, are the 
special objects of his care. On the retirement of Sir 
Morton Peto from the chairmanship of the deputies 
of the three denominations, Mr. Reed was selected to 



Charles Reed, Esq. 217 

fill the vacant post. Mr. Rccd lias also tlie honour 
to be the chairman of the London Missionary Society. 
In the cause of Sunday-schools he is also an earnest 
labom-er. From his youth upwards he has been con- 
nected with them. 

Such is a brief outline of the career of the man 
who, with every chance of success, became the can- 
didate for the representation of Hackney, and who 
aspires to be one of England's legislators in the 
eventful days that are to come, when an enlarged 
constituency will require statesmanship of a very 
different order to that which has hitherto prevailed ; 
when the Constitution of the country will have 
to undergo a searching scrutiny ; when Democracy 
will raise the cry of equality ; and labour, admirably 
organized and conscious of its physical strength, shall 
demand, what it assumes to be, its rights. The old 
soldiers of the Commonwealth trusted in God, and 
kept their powder dry. As much as ever in the 
future, the men who fight England's battles in the 
senate will have to trust in God, and they will do so 
if the constituencies return to Parliament such as 
Mr. Charles Reed. In London there are few men 
more honourable in business, more able in public life, 
more devoted to the spread of that religion which 
has made England greater, and grander, and freer 
than any other nation on the face of the earth. 
Trained to public speaking, to such an orator Hackney 
may well trust her interests, be they large or small ; 



218 New Members, 

and over his return the friends of religion and educa- 
tion^ of peace and progress, rejoice. 



samuel morley, esq. 

(Bristol— Berkeley, 8768 ; Morlet, 8720 ; Mills, C, 6682.) 

Men's lives are books, and to be read as such. It is 
by the study of them we learn how to live ourselves. 
Montaigne would have a father teach his children to 
inquire into " the manners, revenues, and alliances of 
princes/' In our days we have learnt to look else- 
where for examples. Addison, when he sent for his 
stepson, the young Earl of Warwick, that he might 
see how a Christian could die, had a better perception 
of the true need for training children than the old 
philosopher of France. In our time a riper know- 
ledge has taught us that it is better to know how men 
live than how they die ; to know what they are doing 
for their age, what for the sake of truth, what for 
their Lord and Master, than to be cognizant even of 
the faith and hopes by which the Christian is cheered 
and sustained in the dying hour. It is action rather 
than contemplation, life on the platform, or in the 
pulpit, or in the market-place, rather than in the 
cloister or the closet, that the age requires. It is 
well to read of this ; better still is it to see it in the 
living form. Of some such in our day we would 
speak, without impertinence or unseemly prying into 



Samuel Mori cy, Esq^. 219 

private affairs. No one blamed John Milton when he 
told his friends and foes how, when there was civil 
war, and the time had come for his native land to 
contend for faith and freedom, he hastened home from 
the blue skies and pleasant companionship of Italy ; 
listened no longer to the allurements of ambition, laid 
down the harp that in his blind old age he was to 
wake up to melody and power, and took his part as a 
common soldier in the common strife. Such knew- 
ledge was useful and beneficial. It made many a man 
a better worker in the cause. In like manner, if we 
say for others what they might but do not say of 
themselves — in many ways a beneficial result may be 
produced. 

Mr. Samuel Morley belongs to a class of which 
there have been many in the great city of London, but 
of which there have been, alas ! still too few, and of 
which it is to be feared that the number in these days 
of wealth and luxury does not increase. The great 
Uierchant, when he has left his counting-house, is too 
ready in his suburban mansion to forget what are the 
claims of the age upon such as he ; he is tired and 
weary, and asks to be permitted to remain at home, 
entertaining, it may be, his immediate friends with 
costly hospitality, and subscribing liberally to chari- 
table purposes. You ean^t get him to lend his personal 
aid to a Reform meeting, or a temperance association, 
or a religious society ; yet there must be men to make 
a speech, or take the chair upon such occasions. 



220 New Members. 

Christian citizenship requires that a man should do 
this — should lend himself to every good word or work, 
however unfashionable. And, whatever may be the 
personal sacrifice required, a Christian should at all 
times be ready to denounce wrong, by whomsoever it 
may be done, and upon whomsoever it may fall. The 
Romans cherished patriotism as a cardinal virtue. 
Citizenship with them was a high and holy thing. 
They were ready to live and die for it. When the 
city had become enervated with wealth — when citizen- 
ship meant class privileges for the few and bitter in- 
justice for the many, Eome fell, as she deserved to do. 
If the decay and decline of England ever be a fact, it 
will be from a similar cause. It is to men of Mr. 
Morley^s stamp that it is due that such has not been 
the case. A man of business may be a Christian and 
a politician at the same time. Indeed, England can 
never be what she ought to be till her merchant 
princes become such. Algernon Sidney, speaking of the 
Florentine republic of his day, wrote : ^^ It was for a 
short time the most perfect republic that ever existed. 
In the morning they used to attend to their counting- 
houses in the humble garb and manner of citizens. In 
the evening they used to attend in their places as 
legislators, with their gonfalonier e, who was elected 
every three months, at their head, and at night, when 
necessary, eighty thousand men, at the sight of the 
war-fires on the hills, assembled in the Vale of Arno 
to march against the foe.'^ Such was Florence in her 



Samuel Morleij, Esq. 221 

flay of histrc — such M'ill England be when her leaders 
are such as Samuel Morley. 

Born in 1809, a magistrate for Middlesex^ the 
principal in a business which, under his care, has be- 
come gigantic, Mr. Morley has, perhaps, worked as 
hard as most men of his age and time. There are 
few such businesses in London as the great hosiery 
establishment in Wood-street, which was founded at 
Nottingham, and conducted by his father, Mr. John 
]\Iorley, and his uncle, Mr. Richard Morley, before 
him. Happy and well looked after are the young 
men in it. They are not merely as much as possible 
preserA'cd from the perils of London life, but they are 
stimulated to Christian life and activity in many ways ; 
a kindly superintendence is everywhere exercised, and 
a cordial spirit seems to animate all. But, as a Non- 
conformist and a citizen, Mr. Morley found that he 
had something else to do than attend to business 
or the young men in his employ. The Liberals of 
London soon learned to claim him as one of their 
leaders. He shared in the Anti-Corn-Law League 
agitation ; he took a part in the various movements 
with Cobden and Hume for the further exten- 
sion of Reform ; and when the Crimean war broke out, 
and our old system of red tape and circumlocution 
broke down, Mr. Morley was placed at the head of the 
citizens, who, at the Loudon Tavern, or at old Drury- 
lanc, held monster meetings in behalf of administrative 
Reform. At their first public gathering — held ]\Iay 5, 



222 NetD Members. 

1855 — so crowded that hundreds of persons, including 
many Members of Parliament, were unable to obtain 
admission, Mr. Morley, as chairman, said the " aris- 
tocracy had as much right to share in the Govern- 
ment as any other class, but only as they exhibited the 
sterling qualities of honesty and efficiency. The as- 
semblage of that day had no direct connexion with the 
question of the war, but the hideous disclosure of mis- 
management which the history of the war revealed 
seemed to identify the movement with the contest 
with Russia ; and even when that contest was over the 
all-important question would recur, How are we to 
be governed ? Let them go to any one of the public 
departments they pleased, and if they chanced to meet 
the head of it without his intelligent underling at his 
elbow to cram him, they would find him displaying an 
amount of gross ignorance, incompetence, and super- 
ciliousness about any given subject which was actually 
eating into the very heart of the country, undermining 
its greatness, and would, if continued, be its ruin.^' 
This strong language was justified by the facts which 
appeared at that time ; nor were they spoken in vain. 
Great administrative reforms were introduced, and an 
impulse was given to that other qiiestion of Parlia- 
mentary Reform which, in spite of the treachery of 
friends and the hostility of foes, may be said to be 
now settled. Ten years after these words were spoken 
Mr. Morley was returned at the head of the poll as 
M.P. for Nottingham. How he fell inio bad hands 



Samuel Morlci/, Esq, 223 

and -was unseated is knowu to all. But he was in 
Parliament long enough to achieve a Parliamentary 
reputation^ and to leave it regretted by so distinguished 
a man as Mr. Gladstone, then Chancellor of the Ex- 
chequer. With his career in the Senate thus rudely 
cut short, Mr. jSIorley did not retire from the political 
arena in disgust. On the contrary, he renewed his 
activity. Immediately after he presided at a highly 
influential meeting, convened by the National Reform 
Union at the Westminster Palace Hotel ; and in many 
quarters the hope was cherished that at the next election 
INIr. Morley would be returned to Parliament. Bristol 
has fulfilled this hope. 

Good people in our young days used to say that to 
be political was to cease to be spiritual. Such was the 
formula in pious circles. At any rate Mr. Morley is 
certainly an illustrious exception. It appears to us 
that it is his religion which has driven him into 
political life, as it did the heroes of the Common- 
wealth, or the Presbyterians when they rose up against 
the unfortunate ]\Iary, whose fatal charms poets yet 
live to sing. As a Dissenter, Mr. Morley believes in 
the power of the voluntary principle, if it can have 
but fair play. lie is a zealous advocate of temperance 
as a means of removing the drunkenness which has 
been the bane of the English. He is an advocate of 
the political emancipation of the working man ; he is 
a dear friend of popular education : but, above all, it is 
his aim that the Church should awake from her 



224 New Members . 

lethargy, and seek to fill the land with Gospel light 
and life. Though a Congregationalist, he is ready to 
aid with his purse or his presence the earnest worker, 
to whatever sect he may belong. The claims of home, 
especially, Mr. Morley loves to plead. To that end 
he subscribes thousands annually, and sacrifices much 
of the ease of domestic life. There is hardly a chapel 
built to which he is not a subscriber, and there is not 
a county association at which he has not been present. 
For the last eight years especially, has much of his 
time been spent in this manner; nor has he laboured 
in vain. A great revival of home missionary efibrts 
has been the result. Intensely earnest and practical, 
he has held conference after conference with pastors 
and people in all our chief towns and cities. His one 
great ruling idea is, that it is the duty of the Church 
of Christ to bring the world to the rule of Christ. 
The State cannot do this, and the Church must. In 
this work all can do something. The poor man can 
give his time or talent, and the rich man his wealth. 
He is but a steward. The question with him, while a 
world is waiting to be evangelized, should be not 
how much he should give, but how little he should 
retain. " ' There is that scattereth and still in- 
crease th.'' No man,^^ said Mr. Morley recently, at a 
public meeting, " more than I, has realized the truth 
of this passage of Scripture." In 1841 Mr. Morley 
married a daughter of Mr. Samuel Hope, of Liver- 
pool; but this is not the place to speak of him as a 



Henry Richard, Esq. 223 

Paterfamilias. "I have known many great and 
good men/' said a gentleman to us tlie other day, 
" but for strength of mind, depth of sympathy, and 
sincerity of character, I have met with no one like 
Samuel Morley." As his well-made person and clear, 
business-like oratory must be familiar to most of our 
readers, we need not say more. In the month of 
May, as chairman at one or other of our religious 
anniversaries, Mr. Morley is sure to be in his right 
place. 

HENRY RICHARD, ESQ. 

(Meetiiyr Tydvil — Richard, 11,565; Fothergill, 7513; 
Bruce, 5691.) 

Perhaps nowhere more than in Wales have we an 
illustration of the inefficiency of the existing system 
of representation and of the pressing need of the 
reform just effected. Under the old system swept 
away in 1832 there were many anomalies. It was a 
great anomaly that Old Sarum and Gatton shoidd be 
represented in Parliament, while Manchester and Bir- 
mingham and Leeds were not. It was a gi*eat 
anomaly that most of the boroughs should be in the 
hands of a few noblemen, who sold them, and did 
Avhat they liked with their own; it was a great 
anomaly that it was in the power of two or three 
lords or dukes to decide as to who should or who 
should not represent any particular county in Parlia- 
ment; but it was a greater anomaly still that Wales, 

Q 



226 New Members. 

empliatically the land of Dissent^ wliere you never see 
a cluster of houses without finding a Baptist^ or In- 
dependentj or Calvinistic Methodist chapel in their 
midst^ had not a single Dissenter to represent it in the 
British House of Commons, 

At the head of the picturesque Taff valley, in a 
region of coal and iron, is a town called Merthyr, 
which assuredly no traveller for pleasure would visit, 
especially on a rainy day. The town seems to stand 
upon coal. You dig down a few yards and you find 
the invaluable article at once. There is coal in the 
air you breathe, in the water you drink. By day the 
streets, which are narrow, and the houses, which seem 
run up wherever an eligible or ineligible building site 
could be found, are empty. At night the scene is 
changed. By thousands you see around you the 
colliers from the pit, or the puddlers from the great 
ironworks famed all the world over. Some of them 
are on the way to the beershop to smoke tobacco and 
to drink a beverage by no means to be compared with 
that brewed in Burton or Bavaria. The larger pro- 
portion, however, are thinking of better things. With 
their wives and children they are flocking to the 
temperance hall, or the singing-class, or to some plain 
but capacious chapel, where, in a tongue unintelligible 
to the Saxon, and with a fervour of which we can 
give the reader no idea, the orator will unfold the 
blessings of temperance, or tell the wondrous tale of 
redeeming love. In a Parliamentary sense Merthyr 



1 



Henry Richard, Esq. 227 

is the chief town of a district comprisiug Do-\vlais, 
Aberdare, Mountain Ash, Hirwain, Cefu, &c. Our 
description of Merthyr more or less applies to them 
all. In all of them is cherished an enthusiastic na- 
tionality and an hereditary Dissent. The Eisteddfod 
preserves the one; but for the other, such was the 
apathy of the Church by law established, Wales would 
have been a land of heathens. Betrayed by their 
representatives, who have suffered their dearest insti- 
tutions to be insulted, Welshmen have long chafed 
and murmured and declaimed. The men of Merthyr 
and its neighbom-hood felt that they have had some- 
what too much of this, and that the time for action 
had arrived. The new Reform Bill gave Merthyr two 
Members and a constituency of 13,000 electors. They 
determined Mr. Henry E-ichard, of London, should 
be their M.P. They canvassed the electors, and nine 
thousand at once promised one vote for Mr. E-ichard. 
The other candidates were the late sitting Member, 
Mr. Hemy Austin Bruce, Vice-President of the Edu- 
cational Department of the Privy Council, and Mr. 
Fothergill, we believe one of the neighbouring iron- 
masters. It was clear from the first, if there were 
any value in promises, Mr. Richard^s seat was sure, 
and that to Merthyr would be due the merit of 
having established the political independence of 
Wales. 

The origin of Mr. Richard's candidature was as 
follows : — About a year and a half since a meeting was 

q2 



228 New Members. 

held at Merthyr of certain of the electors^ who agreed 
unanimously to two resolutions, one to the eifect that 
OEe of the M.P/s for Merthyr should be a Noncon- 
formist,, and another intimating that Mr. Richard 
^^ was a fit and proper person to represent the borough 
as one of its members/' A deputation accordingly 
waited upon him. He gave them no decided answer, 
but stated that he would come down and address 
the electors and judge for himself. He fulfilled 
his promise, and the result was more than the 
most sanguine could have anticipated. "With the 
whole mass of our artisan population/' writes the local 
paper, the Telegraph, " Mr. Richard is the most popu- 
lar man of the day.'' His powerful oratory fell upon 
willing and enthusiastic auditors. He cai'ried all 
before him. Merthyr embraced him with all the fer- 
vour of a first love. Mr. Richard is a good speaker, 
his face indicates benevolence, his manners and attain- 
ments are beyond the average. For years he has been 
known as the respected Secretary of the Peace Society; 
but his success is due to none of these things, but to 
the fact that he is the representative of the darling 
and natural ideas of intelligent Welshmen — their na- 
tionality and Dissent. 

Let us give a brief outline of Mr. Richard's career. 
His father was the Rev. Ebenezer Richard, a minister 
of great popularity and influence among the Welsh 
Calvinistic Methodists. He was born in Cardiganshire, 
and at the age of eighteen was sent to Highbury Col- 



i 



Henry Richard, Esq. 229 

lege to study for the ministry among the Cougrega- 
tioualists. After spending the usual time at High- 
bury, Mr. Richard became minister at Marlborough 
Chapel, Old Kent-road, where he laboured many years 
with acceptance and with a fail' share of success. In 
1848 he resigned the pastorate to devote himself ex- 
clusively to the Peace Society. For a short time he 
had endeavoui'cd to unite the two ajjpointments, but 
he found himself unequal to the task. 

Mr. Richard^s labours in connexion with the Peace 
Society have been various. He had to organize the 
congresses held successively at Brussels, Paris, Frank- 
fort, London, and Edinburgh. In 1856, at the end of 
the Russian war, Avhen the plenipotentiaries of the 
great Powers were sitting at Paris to settle the terms 
of peace, Mr. Richard drew up a memorial which was 
sent to every one of the crowned heads represented 
on that occasion, urging the importance of proposing 
at the conference then sitting " some system of inter- 
national arbitration which may bring the great interests 
of nations within the cognizance of certain fixed rules 
of justice and right." At the same time Mr. Richard 
accompanied Mr. Joseph Sturge and the late Mr. 
Charles Hindley, M.P., as a deputation to Paris from 
the Peace Society, and communicated either by per- 
sonal interview or by letter with all the plenipoten- 
tiaries on the same subject. At their request Lord 
Clarciulon brought the ([ucstion before his colleagues, 
and this led to the adoption of the resolution embodied 



230 New Members. 

in Protocol 23, in whicli tbe plenipotentiaries " do not 
hesitate to express in the name of their Governments 
the wish that States between which any serions mis- 
understandings may arise^ should before appealing to 
arms have recourse to the good offices of a friendly 
Power/^ Of this provision Mr. Gladstone has said, 
" As to the proposal to submit international differences 
to arbitration^ I think that is in itself a great triumph 
— a powerful engine on behalf of civilization and hu- 
manity.-'^ And it was to this that Lord Stanley ap- 
pealed when he mediated recently so successfully 
between France and Prussia. 

The Morning Star is partly indebted to Mr. Richard 
for existence. He was one of the principal co-opera- 
tors with Mr. Joseph Sturge and Mr. William Eawson 
for this purpose, and for two or three years, at the 
request of Mr. Joseph Sturge and Mr. Cobden, acted 
as editor. Many of the leaders, especially those re- 
lating to foreign affairs, were from Mr. Richard^s pen. 
As a writer on behalf of Wales, calumniated by 
Government Commissioners and Churchmen, who can 
see nothing good outside their own little system, 
Mr. E/ichard has been active and untiring. The 
notorious Blue-books appeared in 1846, and ever since 
Mr. Richard has lost no opportunity, whether on the 
platform or by the press, in vindicating the fair fame 
of his native land. But recently have been reprinted 
his letters on the social and political condition of the 
principality of Wales, which appeared in the Morning 



Henry Richard, Esq. 231 

Star from February to May last year^ for which 
letters most of the Dissenting bodies in Wales have 
voted him the heartiest thanks. 

Mr. Richard, while defending his countrymen from 
their slanderers, has felt the need of energetic action 
in educational matters on their behelf. He was one 
of the first to originate the movement which led to 
the establishment of a normal college for Wales at 
Brecon, whence it was subsequently moved to Swan- 
sea. In company with Mr. Edward Baines and Mr. 
Samuel Morley, he went through Wales on a similar 
mission, and at a later time he accompanied INIr. 
Samuel INIorley on a tour with a view to provide 
religious education for the English population of South 
Wales. As a Nonconformist Mr. Richard has la- 
boured hard to get his countrymen to exert themselves. 
In 1863, he, accompanied by Mr. Carvell Williams 
and Mr. Edward Miall, paid a ^dsit to Swansea, to 
arouse the AVelsh Dissenters to the assertion of their 
political rights : and in 1866 he took an active part 
in the conferences held in Montgomeryshire, Derby- 
shire, Merionethshire, and Cardiganshire for that 
purpose. 

It may be further said of Mr, Richard, that more 
or less he has been connected with the Anti-slavery 
cause, with the Society for the Abolition of Death 
Punishment, and that ho has acted cordially with Mr. 
Cobden, Mr. Joseph Sturge, and most of the distin- 
guished philanthropists of England or America. 



232 New Members. 

In 1865 Mr. Richard, whose name had been long 
kept before his countrymen by the Welsh periodical 
presSj went down to Cardiganshire to contest the 
representation of that county. He withdrew, fearing 
that, with three Liberals in the field, a Tory would be 
returned. This decision was a great mistake. In 
his retiring address to the electors and people of 
Cardiganshire, Mr. Richard wrote : " It is evident 
now that the voice and the hearts of the county were 
wholly with me. I have received so many proofs 
from all parts of the country, not merely of approval, 
but, I will venture to say, of the general enthusiasm 
felt on my behalf, that I am perfectly sure the people 
would have carried me triumphantly on their shoul- 
ders to Parliament. Unfortunately I did not know 
all this until it was too late.^"* At Merthyr there was 
no danger of Mr. Richard making such a mistake, 
Mr. Richard said of Cardiganshire that the people 
are sounder and more courageous than many of their 
leaders, and that there is a grievous want of organi- 
zation among the Nonconformist and Liberal electors. 
At Merthyr certainly the organization is effective, and 
the people and their leaders are alike staunch. 

Of the political opinions of such a man as Mr. 
Richard it is needless to write. Of course he is for 
the ballot, for the disendowment of the Irish Church, 
and for a system of unsectarian education. In com- 
mon with all leading Liberals, he deprecates the rate- 
paying clauses of the Reform Bill, and is of opinion 



W. M' Arthur, Esq, 233 

that there should be a redistribution of seats. Re- 
turned for Merthyr, not merely does Welsh Dissent 
gain a man pre-eminently qualified to speak on its 
behalf, but peace_, the need of our time, when Europe 
is an armed camp, and industry languishes and pines 
away in consequence, will see in his proper place, the 
place where he can do most good, one of her ablest 
and most persevering advocates. 

W. M^ARTHUR, ESQ. 

(Lajibeth — Lawrence, 15,051 ; M'AnTnus, 14,553 ; 
Howard, C, 7043. 

It is something to be Sheriff of the City of London 
and Middlesex. The office is an important and re- 
sponsible one, and only conferred by the livery upon 
men of, in the civic sense, very eminent position. Not 
long since their choice fell upon Alderman Stone and 
W. M' Arthur, Esq. ; and it is of the latter gentleman 
that we now propose to write. As a London merchant, 
with extensive commercial connexions with Australia, 
as Chairman of the Star Assurance Company, and 
a Director of the City Bank, the trading community 
have long been familiar with his name. As a dis- 
tinguished and liberal supporter in person and in purse 
of the Wcsleyan cause and of the Wesleyan institu- 
tions, he has long been popular in the circles of his 
own zealous and widespread denomination ; and when, 
at the general election of 1865, he contested Pontefract 
on Liberal principles, it was felt that he was a man of 



234 New Members. 

the rigM stamp for Parliament, whose return was to 
be greatly desired by the friends of popular principles 
in every corner of the land. 

Mr. M'Arthur is the son of the late Rev. John 
M^Arthur, a minister belonging to the Wesleyan body in 
Ireland. His ancestors originally lived in Argyleshire, in 
Scotland, but settled in the north of Ireland shortly 
before the Revolution. Mr. M^Arthur had two brothers, 
one of whom died prematurely, after a brilliant but brief 
University career. William, the elder, and the subject 
of this memoir, was destined for business, and about 
thirty years ago he settled in that capacity in London- 
derry. Though an entire stranger, in a short time he 
found himself at the head of one of the largest esta- 
blishments in the city, and a leading member of the 
Corporation, of which he became an alderman. Dif- 
ferences having arisen between the Corporation and 
the Irish Society, he was appointed one of a deputa- 
tion to London, which succeeded in restoring harmony 
between the two bodies. In the erection of the new 
bridge over the Foyle in Londonderry, and in the 
formation of the magnificent line of quays which adorn 
its banks, he rendered considerable aid. In 1843, just 
as the gold discoveries had been made in Australia, 
Mr. M'Arthur's partner and brother went to reside in 
that colony. He had the sagacity to turn to account 
this new source of wealth, and, besides attaining in 
that country high social position, and being nominated 
by the Government to a seat in the Upper House, he 



JJ\ M' Arthur, Esq. 235 

established places of business in Sydney, Melbourne, 
and Adelaide, all of whicli have been prosperous in a 
remarkable degree. One consequence of this rapid 
increase of their business was the removal in 1857 of 
Mr. William INI'Arthur to London, a movement sin- 
cerely regretted by all parties in the town, where, in 
the language of one of the Londonderry papers, he 
had been " a member of the Corporation since it was 
reformed, and not only in the discharge of his duties 
in connexion with that body, but with other local 
boards and institutions, he proved himself a most useful 
citizen.'''' The same journal adds, with regard to Mr. 
M'Ai'thur, that '' he possessed peculiar aptitude for 
business, enlarged views, strong common sense, much 
energy of character, and unimpeachable integrity." 
iSo wonder, under these circumstances, that Mr. 
M*^ Arthur should have risen to a high position in the 
City, or that his name should be before the public as 
that of one well qualified to take an active part in 
public life. In short, we have every reason to believe 
that he fully deserves the eulogium pronounced upon 
him by the well-known Mr. George Moore, of Cheap- 
side, who, in proposing him as a candidate for the 
oflBce of sheriff, described him " as one of our merchant 
princes, a man of great energy of character, and of 
indomitable perseverance and industry ;" adding, 
further, that he " was a philanthropist in the greatest 
sense of the word. He had given a large part of his 
worldly means in works of charity and mercy." 



236 New Members. 

In his address to the electors of Pontefract we have 
an outline of Mr. M^Arthur^s political opinions. In 
1865, in answer to a requisition forwarded to him by 
a numerous and influential body of electors, he de- 
clared himself " in favour of a moderate and gradual 
extension of the franchise/^ and of " any measure cal- 
culated to insure a more thorough representation of the 
intelligence of the kingdom/^ and also of the aboli- 
tion of Church-rates. He would have " the strictest 
economy enforced in every branch of the public ser- 
vice," and he entirely approved " of the principle of 
non-intervention." In a speech delivered at Ponte- 
fract, Mr. M^Arthur explained himself more fully and 
freely. He expressed his great satisfaction at the fact 
that Lord Palmerston rather than Lord Derby was in 
power. He dwelt on the advantages of cheap tea, 
cheap sugar, cheap newspapers, and commercial inter- 
course with France, all of which he considered had 
been secured by Lord Palmerston's Administration. 
He then proceeded to state we had to thank the 
Liberals for free-trade, the suppression of slavery. Par- 
liamentary Reform, the repeal of the Test and Corpo- 
ration Acts, the revision of the penal code, and a large 
number of other measures which had tended to the 
amelioration of the condition of the working classes, 
and the advancement of this great country ; and 
that therefore he was a Liberal, and would be 
found fighting on the Liberal side. Mr. Disraeli 
boasts that he has educated his party. It is to the 



W. M' Arthur, Esq. 237 

credit of IMr. ]\I^Artliur that he had the good sense 
to get his education completed before he ventured 
on the political arena. We all view with reasonable 
suspicion conversions at the eleventh hour. 

As a worthy and active Wesleyan layman, Mr. 
M^ Arthur, in addition to chapel-building and cognate 
matters, has had specially at heart the advancement of 
education in connexion with his own denomination. 
As an Irishman, and son of an Irish minister, his 
warmest sympathies and his most active exertions have 
been put forth in support of the New Wesleyan 
College, Belfast, towards which he and his brother have 
subscribed as much as 3000/., and the foundation- 
stone of which was laid by himself, August 24, 1865. 
This college — the establishment of which marks an 
era in the history of Irish Methodism — aims to teach 
the sons of laity and ministry for general purposes, 
and at the same time to train up a certain number of 
young men as studentsfor the Christian ministry. While 
this is done, the alumni will be able to graduate in con- 
nexion with the Queen^s College, Belfast. The insti- 
tution is confessedly of great importance to the de- 
nomination. It is also regarded by leading minds of 
different sentiments on questions both of religion 
and politics, as a most important step in the progress 
of education in Ireland. In his speech on the occa- 
sion referred to, Mr. M' Arthur said — and his language 
is worth serious consideration at the present mo- 
ment — " Despite all the cavilling and opposition it 



238 New Members. 

had encountered, the national system had been a great 
success. It had conferred great blessings upon the 
population at large. He trusted the Government of 
the country felt too sensibly alive to the interests of 
the nation ever to interfere with the mixed system of 
education — a system which had produced such good 
results." The erection and outfit of the institution 
cost about 81,000/., and an equal sum was required 
for endowment. Actually Mr. M'Arthur, in addition 
to the large sum of money subscribed by himself and 
brother, spent three months in the United States 
to plead its many claims on the Wesleyan Church 
in that prosperous land. But Mr. M*^ Arthur is by 
no means wedded to his own denomination. He is a 
member of the committee of the Bible Society, and of 
the London City Mission. He is also one of the 
leading supporters of the Evangelical Alliance, and at 
its recent meetings for prayer was chairman on one 
occasion at the City midday gathering. 

Lambeth has done well in retm-ning IMr. M*^ Arthur. 
We have said enough to show his fitness for the post. 
We have only one further observation to make : 
Ireland wiU for some time to come occupy the atten- 
tion of Parliament and the nation ; and it will be the 
duty of electors as much as possible to secure the 
return of warm-hearted Irishmen of undoubted 
pecuniary position, and sound in the faith as to politics 



CHAPTER VII. 

MEN WHO HAVE BEEN M.P.'S. 

THE RT. HON. T. MILNER GIBSON. 



B£^^ ID my readers ever travel in the east of Eng- 
,^^ land ? — a part of the world not suggestive of the 
fact that the wise men came from the East, but 
nevertheless a land of honest women and brave men — 
a land flowing with milk and honey in the shape of 
strong ale, turkeys, geese, and sausages. In the old 
coaching days, one of the finest sights in London 
in the winter time of year was to walk along White- 
chapel and to meet the Essex, and Suffolk, and Nor- 
folk coaches, all laden, not with live passengers, but 
dead stock. There were four horses ; there was a 
coachman — perchance, a guard — but no coach was 
visible — not the ghost of a passenger — one mass of 
feathers and skins, of all colours, was the coach, all 
jumbled and jammed together like an omelet, or one 
of Turner's pictures. There were turkeys on their way 
to grace the table of a London alderman ; there were 
pheasants, whose sweet fate was to be consumed by 



240 Men who have been M.P.'s. 

the daintiest of Londoii^s fairest daughters ; anoD 
out of this mass of fine feathers emerged a goose so 
corpulent as to remind the gazer of the poet^s touching 
lines — 

" Of all the poultry in the yard, 
The goose I have preferred — 
There is so much of nutriment 
In that weak-minded bird." 

Or again, you saw a hare, but yesterday leaping along 
in lusty life — which had been shot and despatched to 
a friend in town, who, as he ate it — whether jugged, 
or hashed, or stewed — whether done into soup, or 
cooked a la Derrynane, or roasted, as is the manner 
of some, with Devonshire cream — would think, not 
ungratefully, of the donor and of the pleasant week 
or two spent, in the bright days of summer, under his 
hospitable roof. Ah, well ! the old coaches are gone, 
but the east still abounds in good things, and is a land 
rich in agricultural produce ; but the people are not a 
" fast " people, like those of London and Manchester. 
It was seldom you heard of Chartism there ; and as to 
Socialism, the people yet shudder at the sound. The 
landlords are Conservative, the county representatives 
are Conservative, and a Conservative M.P. seems to 
be as natural a production of the soil as a Sufiblk 
punch or a prize bullock. In the thickest of this 
Conservative Paradise is a village called Theberton, in 
which was the residence of a Major Thomas Milner 
Gibson, who in the year 1807 had a son born to him. 



Tlie nt. Hon. T. Mihier Gibson. 241 

Tlie father -was but little known. I presume lie was 
a country gentleman, and lived after the manner of 
country gentlemen, when George the Third was king ; 
and, undoubtedly, his son was brought up in his own 
image, and after his own fashion. 

The old divines tell us, "^ Man proposes and God 
disposes. "■' You bring up your son to be a miser — he 
becomes a spendthrift ; to be steady, he becomes gay ; 
to be a Dissenter, and he becomes a Puseyite ; to re- 
vere the memory of Cahdn, and he vexes you and 
confuses himself with Thomas Carlyle. Young Milner 
Gibson had talent, ambition, and a good estate. Had 
he been a poor man he would have gone to the bar — 
been, possibly, Attorney-General to Sir Robert Peel — 
for Sir Robert was partial to rising talent — and been 
lost in the confusion which came upon the Conserva- 
tive party when Lord Derby retired from office. As 
a country gentleman, Mr. Gibson felt bound to serve 
his country ; and as a country gentleman, to stand 
by his order. Hence, he began life as a true blue. 
I remember Sir Thomas Gooch, the Gaffer Gooch of 
one of Macaulay's political ballads, warranting him to 
be a regular Conservative colt ; but it is dangerous 
to hazard anything where women, wine, and horses 
are concerned. The promising Conservative colt soon 
changed its colours, and was found running on the 
other side. This was in 1839, when Mr. Gibson re- 
tired from the representation of immaculate Ipswich, 
and was defeated on again offering himself to his late 

11 



242 Men who have been M.P.'s. 

constituents. Mr. Gibson^s principles were changed — 
his career was not altered. At Cambridge,, where he 
had been educated^ and taken a wrangler^s position, he 
appeared as a candidate, but with little success. It 
seemed as if the reward of conviction was political an- 
nihilation. However, this was not for long. A public- 
spirited man with money is sure to get into Parliament, 
if not for one place, why then for another. 

In 1841 Manchester needed a representative, and 
Milner Gibson was returned for the seat, which he 
held with such honour till Manchester in its frenzy 
was guilty of the absurdity of stoning its prophets. 
When the Anti-Corn-Law agitation came, Milner 
Gibson was one of its most successful orators, and 
succeeded in maintaining a position second, and only 
second, to Cobden and Bright. In 1846 the Whigs, 
anxious to please the people, and having personal ob- 
jections to Cobden and Bright, made Milner Gibson 
Vice-President of the Board of Trade, but the De- 
mocracy of Manchester grew jealous of the di-vdded 
affections of their member, and Mr. Gibson resigned 
the office in 1849. The Corn-Law agitation over, Mr. 
Gibson, far from used up, sighed for fresh worlds to 
conquer. At this time the Society for the Repeal of 
the Taxes on Knowledge was in need of an efficient 
parliamentary advocate. Mr. Gibson took that respon- 
sibility on himself. Session after session, he called the 
attention of the House to the subject. He prevailed at 
length upon the Chancellor of the Exchequer to repeal 



The Bt. Hon. T. MUner Gibson. 243 

tbe duty on advertisements. In 1855 he succeeded in 
abolishing the penny stamp on newspapers ; and even 
when we had still war budgets^ Mr. Gibson tried hard 
for a repeal of the tax on paper. Mr. Gibson certainly 
has not been rewarded for this as he ought. He was 
indefatigable in the prosecution of the repeal of the 
taxes on knowledge, and the Society was nothing 
without him. It was Milner Gibson, the member for 
Manchester, who conferred on it respectability and 
power, who presided at its annual meetings in the me- 
tropolis, who got the public to attend them, who put 
the facts of the case in a telling way before the House 
of Commons, and by his tact and bonhommie secured 
parliamentary votes, which compelled the Chancellor 
of the Exchequer to interfere. The advocates of the 
repeal of the taxes on knowledge painted a glowing 
picture of the advantages that should ensue when those 
taxes were repealed. Cheap newspapers were the 
want of our times. It was because there were no 
cheap newspapers that the gaols were filled, and that 
the public-houses did a great business ; it was because 
there were no cheap newspapers that, to the dim and 
downcast eyes of the people, Knowledge, 

" Her ample page, 
Bich with the spoils of time, did ne'er unroll ;" 

and it was because Mr. Gibson took up the agitation 
that it triumphed, in spite of the opposition of the 
Time.'i and the larger section of the press. And yet 
when the victory was won, I know not whether Mr. 

H 2 



244 Me7i ivho have been Af.P.'s. 

Milner Gibson scarce got thanks ; certainly no public 
meeting assembled to do him bonoar, and no testimo- 
nial was collected in bis praise. He bad fougbt and 
won tbe battle of tbe people^ and tbe people said never 
a word. It is well that tbe bonest statesman labours 
for something more enduring than their hollow breath. 
In the increased supply of cheap literature — in the 
healthy character on the whole of that literature — in 
the consequent elevation^ mental and morale of the 
masses — in the stimulus thus given to progress — Mr. 
Gibson must alone seek his reward. It was the boast 
of the late Sir Robert Peel that by removing the 
shackles of trade — that by bidding commerce be free — 
that by giving to the men and women of this country 
cheap bread; he should have established his claim to 
be remembered gratefully long after he himself should 
have passed away. Lord John Russell has more than 
once quoted with approbation those well-worn lines in 
which the statesman is represented as filling the land 
with plenty^ and as reading thanks in the nation^s eyes. 
In a similar manner Mr. Gibson may consider that he 
has deserved well of his country, for a land lying in 
ignorance, perishing for lack of knowledge, its mental 
eye dark and dim, can never become great, or noble, 
or free. Such as Mr. Gibson may even claim the re- 
spect of the most timid Conservatives. No one fears 
a reading public — a public that does not read may 
be soon worked up into delii'ium and madness. At 
such times the demagogue may be mistaken for a sage. 



The m. Hon. T. Milner Gibson. 245 

but the reading public sees him to be what he is. The 
cheap press, like IthurieFs spear, makes him reveal 
himself iu his true and hideous light. 

Let us follow the Ashton M.P. into the House. 
"V^Tien he sat with the Manchester party, by the side of 
Cobden and Bright, he looked little like a Manchester 
man himself. There was about him far more of the 
air of the country gentleman and scholar; and you 
would imagine that he had got there merely for a chat, 
as his light, gay air by no means harmonized with 
the serious appearance of his colleagues. Mr. Gibson 
always looks good-tempered and pleasant, and has been 
and is now rather a handsome-looking man ; and not 
being blessed with large whiskers, has still rather a 
young and fresh appearance ; but when he became 
President of the Board of Trade and one of the Cabi- 
net, he certainly did not improve in appearance. On 
the night when Lord Palmerston moved his celebrated 
resolutions I thought Mr. Gibson looked peculiarly 
uncomfortable and disappointed, and I candidly con- 
fess no one likes to be balked of victory in the very 
hour of anticipated triumph. No doubt Mr. Gibson 
went into the ministry to repeal the Paper duties. A 
reactionary House of Commons, and an innovating 
House of Lords, however, decided otherwise at the 
eleventh hour. With brown curly hair, light com- 
plexion, well-shaped features, and blue eyes, Mr. Gib- 
son was as fine a specimen of the Conservative colt 
as you would wish to see, with the frank and winuiug 



246 Men who have been M.P!s. 

manner of the English gentry of the better class. 
Nothing seemed to put him out ; and even the country- 
gentlemen^ who regarded him with aversion, — who 
considered him as a traitor to their cause, — who re- 
membered how he had been born and bred in their 
camp, and had now gone over to the enemy, — could 
not find it in their hearts to be very angry with a 
man who, after all, had been one of themselves. Mr. 
Gibson^s manner is conciliatory. He belongs to the 
extreme party, without seeming to be extreme. His 
voice is pleasant and musical. If you difier with him, 
you don^t feel inclined to quarrel with him. Some 
men in the House are very apt to excite antagonism 
and to irritate you by the very sound of their voice. 
We can point to more than one eminent M.P. who 
makes you feel vraspish immediately he is on his 
legs. It is a pity Mr. Gibson did not speak oftener. 
Certainly office has a great tendency to make men 
dumb. 

The Cobdenic policy, as illustrated in the person of 
Mr. Gibson, lost much of its unpopular air. During 
the Russian war, Mr. Gibson was, comparatively speak- 
ing, quiet. He did not prophesy, as Mr. Bright did, 
that, in a couple of years^ time, it would land us in 
civil war; nor did he, like Mr. Cobden, sit down to 
write letters republished with glee at St. Petersburg. 
Even while heading the crusade for the repeal of the 
taxes on knowledge, he did not, with the latter, hold 
up trumpery American papers as superior to such 



The Et. Hon. T. Mihier Gibson. 247 

papers as the Times ; nor did he^ with Mr. Bright^ 
charge the Daily Netvs with ingratitude^ because it 
dared to be independent. Even the Saturday Review 
has dealt gently with JNIr. Gibson ; and yet^ quiet_, plea- 
sant-looking as he is, INIr. Gibson can do a great deal 
of damage. He upset Lord Palmerston^s first cabinet. 
To be sure the latter had his revenge, for he appealed 
to the country and got Manchester to reject her 
worthiest representatives. As member for Ashtou- 
under-Lyne, Mr. Gibson reappeared, and when the 
aged Premier got Manchester to endorse him as a first- 
rate liberal, Mr. Gibson accepted a seat in the Cabinet. 
Mr. Gibson has the credit, deservedly, of being one of 
the best tacticians in the House, but it was the opinion 
of some who know a little about these things, that in 
the aged Palmerston he found his match. 

At the same time that Mr. Gibson may not share 
the odium of the leaders of the Manchester party, he 
may not share their praise. He is a courageous advo- 
cate of progress, a flattering representative of Man- 
chester, and a man of great platform power ; but he is 
not, like Bright, a peace advocate on principle ; nor 
could he have sacrificed everything, as Cobden did, 
to fight the battle of Free Trade. Mr. Gibson's debiit 
in the House was fortunate ; it was on a subject on 
which he knew much. Some business connected with 
the Baltic had been occupying the attention of the 
House. Mr. Gibson had just been up there in his 
yacht ; consequently he knew more about the subject 



248 Men loJw have been M.P.'s. 

than any one else, and lie told what he knew in a 
manner at once to win the ear of the House. On 
other matters, when he has spoken, he has been 
equally at home. He hits the feeling of the House 
in his speeches. He does not seem particularly in 
earnest, or particularly extreme. He is not savagely 
severe or sublimely eloquent. You do not feel that 
he is trying to make a great speech, and to be quoted 
as a second Fox or Burke. Even when he acts the 
part of the tribune of the people, he has the air of a 
gentleman, and there is good- nature in his voice, and 
a merry twinkle in his eye. As long as democracy 
rejoices in such a representative, patricians need not 
shrink from it, or old ladies dream of Mirabeau and 
B/obespierre. No noble lord need fear the working 
classes under the leadership of Mr. Gibson. He, by 
birth, is a gentleman — was brought up at Cambridge 
— is the owner of a large landed estate ; and if he 
listens to the manufacturers, and is on good terms with 
the bugbear of political dissent, and occasionally ap- 
pears on the platform at St. Martinis Hall, and casts 
in his lot with the party of Bright, it must be re- 
membered that he at least has, even in the eyes of 
the Bentincks and Newdegates, a stake in the country, 
and is of the class who are supposed to be alone quali- 
fied for statesmanship, and office, and political rank. 



Jolin Arthur Boebiick. 249 

JOHN ARTHUR ROEBUCK. 

Are there honest men in the world of politics ? and if 
so, are they the better or the worse for their honesty ? 
These are questions to be asked, and if you will, 
answered ; or, to come to particulars, would John 
Arthur Eoebuck have been more successful, as men 
reckon success, had he been less honest ? The 
honourable gentleman would reply in the aflfirmative. 
The public must form its oavu opinion. When the 
great Chatham entered the House of Commons, Wal- 
pole exclaimed, " We must muzzle that terrible cornet 
of horse."' The muzzling process is believed to exist 
at this day. We have seen wonders effected, and we 
naturally suspect a cause. When Mr. Bernal Osborne, 
after years of silence and peace, utters his wild slu'iek 
of liberty, we naturally come to a conclusion that his 
seat on the Treasury Bench is insecure. On Irish 
members the muzzling process is very apparent. 
Under its soothing influence the roaring patriot 
aggravates his voice and sings very small indeed. 
But the man gets his place, and* we clap our hands. 
In success there is manifestly a saving grace. If a 
man has that we honour him. We stop not to in- 
quire how he has succeeded. If he has betrayed his 
party, if he has sworn oaths and broken them, if he 
has said one thing one day and another the next, if 
he has worn one face on the hustings and another 
in St. Stephen's, he is honoured nevertheless; just as 



250 Men who have been M.P.'s. 

people flatter the lucky speculator,, the successful 
tradesman^ the great millowner, and never stop to in- 
quire by what sharp practice, by what ingenious dis- 
honesty, or gi'oss fraud, the wealth thus venerated has 
been acquired. In these days it is not the rogues 
that walk in mud. Ah me ! but yesterday, in the 
slush and rain and cold, I met one born in humble 
life, but dowered with a beauty for which many a 
Belgravian lady would sell her soul. Vainly I looked 
for the loveliness of an earlier day. Care and 
want had furrowed her brow, and had thinned the 
luxuriant locks, and had dimmed the lustre of eyes 
once bright as pearls, and paled the red lips and rosy 
cheek. In this great city, where sin exists without the 
sense of shame, she had retained her honesty, but at 
what a price ! Quid rides ? as a late eminent satirist, 
with his immense erudition, was wont to say. I felt 
in that poor creature^s presence as if at the shrine of 
a saint. Thus I do not indicate that Cato is an idiot 
because he is at the bottom of the poll ; because he is 
alone, poor, neglected ; because his struggles have been 
great and his successes small. A man who will find 
fault with all parties, will expose officials, will oppose 
himself to the prejudices and passions of the hour, will 
blame the narrowness of the Church, aud yet at the 
same time express his abhorrence of the intolerance of 
dissent, cannot look for popularity. Nay more, if we 
suspect Cato of occasional injustice, if he himself 
evinces temper and passion, if he shows a sternness in 



John Arthur Roebuck. 251 

some quarters where we should expect forbearance, 
and a forbearance where we should look for sternness, 
if he is occasionally conveniently dumb or inconveni- 
ently fussy, especially if he gets mixed up with a dirty 
job, like a Galway contract for instance, — if our Cato 
considers himself master of every subject, if he be 
always obtruding himself before better men, like Talka- 
tive in the " Pilgrim^s Progress,^^ exclaiming, " I will 
talk of things heavenly or things earthly — things 
moral or things evangelical — things sacred or things 
profane — things past or things to come — things foreign 
or things at home — things more essential or things 
circumstantial,^^ — perhaps we shall understand how it 
is Cato is not held in more honour, and shall see that 
the public are not so much to blame as at first sight 
may appear. 

It is half-past foui^, and we are standing in the 
lobby of the House of Commons. A very little man, 
leaning on a stick, comes tottering towards us. He 
is shabbily dressed, and seems very, very feeble. Poor 
man, you piteously exclaim, why are you here in this 
unhealthy atmosphere — in this fierce arena ? Why 
seek you to wrestle with these athletes when you were 
better at Malvern, or Scarborough, or some other 
locality sacred to Hygeia ? Such are your natural 
reflections. They arc not, however, those of the sub- 
ject of them. His feeling evidently is quite otherwise. 
You can imagine him saying, " I am plain Jolin 
Arthur Roebuck, friend of the people, advocate of pro- 



252 Men who have been M.P!s. 

gresSj and cliampion of tlie rights of man. Out of tlie 
way^, O ye blind leaders of the blind; are ye not, 
every mother^s son of you, nincompoops, pudding- 
beaded and asinine windbags — sbams ? Have ye not 
blundered and placed England on tbe brink of per- 
dition ? I say, go home, and I, John Arthur Eoebuck, 
must save her, or she is lost for ever/^ It is true that 
when Mr. Roebuck has had the field to himself he has 
not been eminently successful. He was Chairman 
of the Administrative Reform Association ; where is it 
now? He was Chairman of the Western Bank — 
a bubble that has long been burst. He was Chairman 
of the Sebastopol Committee ; yet how impotent were 
its conclusions ! He was one of the great men of the 
Galway Steam Packet Company, of the Exchange 
Bank, and in some quarters a belief was entertained 
that these were bubbles. Surely a gentler style of 
criticism, a little less arrogancy of manner, a little 
less virulence of invective, is becoming to a man 
whose failures have been so numerous ! 

Let me describe Mr. Eoebuck as I saw him on the 
night when he made his motion for the appointment of 
the Sebastopol Committee. Imagine youi'self, intel- 
ligent reader, in the Speaker^s Gallery. Glancing 
down the gangway, on the Ministerial side, there stands 
a little man with a hooked nose and a face indicative 
of weakness and premature decay. The tones of his 
voice are faint and sickly ; his action is feeble. He 
forgets what he is going to say in a manner painfid to 



John Arthur Roehuck. 253 

witness. He rubs his liaud across his forehead, aud 
tries to catch the missing train of thought — but in vain ; 
it is gone from him for ever. The House listens 
kindly, and cheers, but all in vain. There he stands — 
he whose winged words were sharper than arrows, 
whose sting was that of an adder, whose imperious 
tone, his hand pointing all the while, as if to say, 
" Thou art the man,'" drove conscience home to the 
most careless and made the most phlegmatic writhe, 
who seemed to scalp his victim, as it were, and the fear 
of whom was a principle in many a heart — there he 
stands, with opportunity, the grand thing he had been 
panting for all his ambitious life, at length his own ; 
the time at length come for which he had prayed since 
earliest youth — a grand drama, and a grand part to act 
in it for himself; and oh ! the mockery of life, the 
power gone, and the golden moments lost for ever. 
The sight was a sad and an affecting one, and when 
poor Roebuck sat down, for a wonder, for once the 
House was subdued and hushed and still. Pity for the 
speaker allayed all hostility. It seemed as if no one 
cared to create a debate — as if the spectacle of a popu- 
lar statesman struck down in the moment of what was 
to have been his triumph was of its kind as sad as that 
of a gallant army mouldering away beneath adminis- 
trative imbecility and neglect. 

At a public meeting held not very long since at 
Sheffield, Mr. Roebuck endeavoured to answer the 
question how it was that he, unconnected with the 



254 Men who have been M.P.'s. 

great parties in the State^ not of tlie great families^ un- 
distinguished by wealth_, unknown to fame^ should 
have won the approbation and confidence of his coun- 
trymen. Warming with his theme he exclaimed — '^ It 
is not talent; it is not name_, it is not rank_, it is not 
wealth; it is steadfastness in that path which I had 
marked out for myself in the beginning. I am proud 
to say that in the year 1833 I published a programme 
of the opinions I then held. I had prepared myself 
for a public life, I had then formed my opinions, and 
I consigned them to paper. I printed them, and to 
them I now adhere. That which I said in 1833 I say 
now, and it is my firm and my steadfast adherence to 
the opinions I then expressed which has now won for 
me the confidence of my countrymen. Going into 
Parliament unknown, unsupported, and only recom- 
mended by that true friend of the people, Joseph 
Hume, I determined not to ally myself to either of the 
great parties then dividing the House of Commons 
and the kingdom. To that rule I have adhered through 
life, and no man can now say I am either Whig or 
Tory.^"" Roebuck, then, may be described as a 
Radical politician, but of a Radicalism of so singular a 
character as to induce him to side and seat himself with 
the Opposition rather than with the supporters of 
Grovernment. When he makes war he prefers to 
attack his friends. Gentlemen whose opinions are sup- 
posed most to resemble his own he cannot abide. It 
seems strange now, that he has even acquired the re- 



Joltn Arlhur Hoehuch. 



liioo 



putation lie lias; yet there was a time wlien many 
competent judges of all the orators of the House de- 
lighted chiefly in John Arthur Roebuck^ and deemed 
the skill with which he unmasked a job — the delight 
with which he brought it before the House — the in- 
vective which he directed against all parties connected 
Avith it^ inimitable. On the whole, now, Mr. Roebuck 
may be pronounced a failure — that is, other men, less 
gifted, less honest, less popular, have been more suc- 
cessful. The cause is chiefly in an unhappy tempera- 
ment; a temperament which makes him always go in 
an opposite direction to what is required. To get Mr. 
Roebuck on your side you must beg him to speak 
against you. Sydney Smith used to say of certain in- 
dividuals, Mr. S. is a clubable man. Now the House of 
Commons after all is a club, and Mr. Roebuck is not a 
clubable man. This is the primary cause. Another 
is the vanity which makes him insist on playing first 
fiddle. Aut Casar aut niillus is his motto. 

Again, I\Ir. Roebuck has exhibited another great 
fault, he has not trusted in himself. He has shown 
the vanity, and, I may add, the weakness of a woman. 
His duel with Mr. Black of the Morning Chronicle, his 
endeavour to get the Times censured in the House for 
a description of the honourable gentleman which every 
one who heard it confessed to be singularly truthful 
and exact, his impotent attempt to put Mr. Disraeli 
down when the latter had but just made his parlia- 
mentary deMt) his vindictive attack, only very re- 



256 Men who have been M.P.'s. 

cently, on Dr. Mitchell^ the ex-Bodmin M.P., wlio 
plainly confessed to the House, and in a way which 
gained for him lasting honour, that it was true that he 
had agreed to retire from the representation of his 
borough rather than stay to fight the petition which 
had been presented with regard to his seat, for the 
simple reason that he was a poor man comparatively 
speaking, and had not the money requisite for a par- 
liamentary defence ; such things as these deservedly 
lower Mr. Eoebuck's position in the House, and with 
all right-thinking men all over the country. Were 
Mr. Roebuck less impulsive, less irritable, less jealous 
of himself, he would spare his friends and supporters 
the repetition of such painful scenes. After enjoying 
the courtesies of the French at Cherbourg, could any- 
thing be more execrable than his insulting references 
to the women renowned all the world over for fascina- 
tions, which might even for a moment have soothed 
Mr. Roebuck into civility and good temper ? It is not 
thus that public men should act, and sure are we that 
the public man who thus acts must have great talents, 
great industry, great honesty, to hold up his head in the 
face of such things. Granting Mr. Roebuck to have 
done the State some service as a politician and a man 
of letters, though in this latter capacity he has not 
greatly shone in his day, it is obvious that his worst 
foe has been himself, and that if he had, like all truly 
great men, been above the suggestions of a childish 
vanity, he would by this time have taken a higher 



John Arthur Rochuch. 257 

stand. His success must be in himself, in tlie verdict 
of his own heart, in the consciousness that he has 
been true to his mission, that he has not swerved aside 
for man's smile or frown. Political independence is 
rare, and is chiefly affected by eccentricities such as 
the late Colonel Sibthorp, or Mr. Drummond, or Mr. 
Darby Griffiths. In the case of Mr. Roebuck it is often 
an obstacle in the path of political progress. Even 
Mr. Roebuck's pertinacious egotism cannot blind him 
to the fact that he does not represent public opinion 
at all. 

Mr. Roebuck's references to himself at all times are 
amusing. We infer, as we glance at his speeches, 
public education has prospered because it has had Mr. 
Roebuck's support. On a very recent occasion the 
severest censure he could pass upon Lord John Russell 
Avas, that he had failed to consult Mr. Roebuck. I am 
the good dog Tearera, says Mr. Roebuck, who guards 
the lambs who would otherwise be torn to pieces by 
the ravenous wolf. I am the man, lie told the Sheffield 
people the other day, who says hard things, as if hard- 
hitting was the sine qua non of statesmanship. A man 
in public life should have no mock modesty ; in Mr. 
Roebuck's case bashfulness has not certainly been 
carried to excess. An oracle, it was said, warned the 
Athenians against a man who alone was opposed to 
the whole city. Phocion claimed the honour of such 
singularity for himself. When one of his proposals 
was received with unusual a])prol)atiou, he turned 

8 



25 S Men who have been M.P.'s. 

round to his friends and asked whether he had let any- 
thing escape him that was wrong. Bishop Thirlwall 
tells us, " In his speeches he carefully avoided all 
rhetorical embellishments, which he had learnt from 
Plato to consider as a kind of flattery unworthy an 
honest man, and studied a sententious brevity/^ which^ 
however, was so enlivened with wit and humour, as 
often to make a deeper impression than the most 
elaborate periods. It was even observed by one of his 
adversaries that Demosthenes was the best orator, but 
Phocion the most powerful speaker. And Demosthenes 
himself, it is said, trembled for the effect of his elo- 
quence when Phocion rose after him, and would 
whisper to his friends, " Here comes the hatchet to my 
speech.^' Mr. Roebuck was, and he seemed to pride him- 
self on it, the Phocion of the House of Commons. He 
must stand alone. He can bear no rival near his throne. 
He can be as severe on John Bright as Mr. Disraeli, 
on friends as foes. The right of private judgment, 
carried to excess, is the vice of modem society, ac- 
cording to Mr. Gladstone's teaching in his " Church 
and its Relation to the State,'' and by no one living 
statesman is this right more rigidly guarded, or occa- 
sionally more inconveniently displayed, than by Mr. 
Roebuck. 

His non-success, considered in a worldly point of 
view, may be in some degree the result of the fact that 
he has steadfastly set his face against complying with 
the conditions which insure success. No one ever 



John Arthur Hocbuck. 259 

asked him to play the part of the tribune of the people. 
The parties in the House are Whig and Tory, and 
the electors out-of-doors are either the one or the 
other. It is true the names are rarely heard, but the 
essential division remains tlie same. There were 
Radicals when Mr. Roebuck took his seat for Bath. 
As he tells us, he has not changed in his opinions 
since 1832. Well, when he first entered Parliament, 
there had been the greatest political convulsion known 
in England since 1688. Democracy, flushed with 
triumph, like a giant refreshed with wine, trod the 
land. The privileged classes were in despair, and 
peers and bishops trembled for their very heads. The 
reaction had not set in which in so short a time nearly 
undid all the good that the Bill had effected. The 
mistake of John Arthur Roebuck was in supposing 
that it never would — that the Reform Bill had ushered 
in a new era — that the days of corruption and igno- 
rance and darkness were past — that Parliament was 
to be a grand reality, and that henceforth the people, 
enlightened, passionless, high-toned, indignant at all 
petty meannesses, impatient of all party frauds, were 
to rule the land. In this estimate, in sorrow and shame 
be it known, Mr. Roebuck made an egregious mistake. 
To struggle up from the people, not by pandering to 
the ruling classes, nor to the prejudice of the mob, 
nor to the caprices of the peers, is a Herculean task. 
The great Sir Robert Peel is an admirable illustration 
of a successful tactician. He sought power, we grant, 



260 Men who have beefi M.P.'s. 

for public not personal ends : yet how did he acquire 
that power? By the most unscrupulous pandering to 
the passions and prejudices of party. What Protestant 
prejudices — what Tory prejudices — what Protectionist 
prejudices — received the sanction of his support, and 
yet what ruin he wrought to the very prejudices he 
had not feebly advocated, but solemnly and at times 
sanctimoniously upheld. Still he succeeded, and be- 
came England's model statesman. Roebuck has been 
the reverse of all this, and at the same time he has 
been unnecessarily arrogant and ofPensive. He takes 
Lord Peter as his model. My readers may remember 
when one of the brothers contended that what he 
asserted to be good mutton bore a striking resem- 
blance to a slice off a brown loaf — as in reality it was 
— his lordship replied, " Look ye, gentlemen, to 
convince you what a couple of blind, positive, igno- 
rant, wilful puppies you are, I will use but this plain 
argument — it is true good natural mutton as 
any in Leadenhall Market, and G — confound you 
both eternally if you offer to believe otherwise.^'' Of 
this " plain argument^' we have somewhat too much 
in Mr. Roebuck's speeches. He has carried this 
" plain argument ^^ to an excess. A life spent in 
unsuccessful invective has soured him. He reminds 
us of the hero of Tennyson's " Vision of Sin,'-" as he 

exclaims 

" Unto me my maudlin gall, 
And my mockeries of the world." 



Mr. Bernal Osborne, i?6l 



MR. BERNAL OSBORNE. 

"Why should English geutlemen engage in politics ? 
As a profession, it does not pay. Lord John Russell 
is not supposed to be immensely wealthy ; yet he 
must have spent, in election contests and for election 
purposes, quite as much as he has ever received back 
in the shape of official salary. We all know what 
serious remonstrances were made by the firm with 
which Mr. Poulet Thompson was connected, on account 
of the money he spent with a view to secure himself a 
seat in Parliament. Theoretically, the system is as 
bad as it can well be. " I bought you,'' said an 
exultant M.P. to a discontented constituency, on 
one occasion, " and Til sell you." Such a feeling, 
of course, naturally rises in the hearts of men 
who have acquired their parliamentary position by 
their wealth ; and some Radicals will always prove 
to you, that if a man parts with his cash, unless he 
be born a fool, he does not do it for nothing. It is 
too bad such should be the case. We can never ex- 
pect a reformed House of Commons till we get M.P.'s 
to be ashamed of the dirty and disgraceful work at 
election contests. Constituents and M.P.'s are deeply 
dishonoured by such things. I do not know who arc 
the most to blame — the scoundrels who are dirty 
enough to bribe, or the scoundrels who are dirty 
enough to take the bribe. Is it not strange tliat we 
.get men of honour on cither side of the House? 



262 Men who have been M.P.'s. 

The Osborne family illustrate and confirm tliis view. 
Some years back there was a very respectable gentle- 
man M.P. for Eochester and chairman of committees 
in the House of Commons. In the discharge of his 
duties in this latter capacity he received the respect- 
able allowance of 1200/. a year; but^ in order to 
secure that sum, he was reported to have spent in 
election contests a sum amounting to 60,000/. This 
gentleman was the father of the late M.P. for Not- 
tingham. A description of the fonner will almost suit 
the latter. Mr, Grant thus describes Mr. Bernal : — 
" His face is round, and his features are intelligent 
and agreeable; his complexion indicates an ample 
stock of health ; he has a fine forehead ; his hair is of 
a dark brown colour ; he is of Jewish description ; he 
is a commanding person, and in the prime of life.^* 
The resemblance may be carried still further. Mr. 
Grant says of the father, that " he speaks very seldom, 
and never at any length on any question of com- 
manding importance." The son, also, in common 
with the father, illustrates the fallacy involved in the 
idea that the House of Commons is a place for common 
people. Both found that parliamentary existence, 
as a rule, requires a very considerable property 
qualification. Some people will tell you the latter is 
abolished. It is not, nor ever will be. The more 
democratic is a constituency, the more essential a 
requisite will it be for its representative to be a man 
of wealth. What could a poor M.P. do in Westminster, 



Mr. Bernal Osborne. 263 

or Fiusbury, or ]\Iarylebone, or tlie Tower Hamlets ? 
If by a miracle he were to be returned, depend upon 
it bis constituency would soon tire of him. I write 
this with full knowledge of the fact that the House of 
Commons forbids bribery at elections, and that the 
returns of expenses certified by the auditor appointed 
for the purpose are ridiculously small. It is really 
wonderful, considering all things, how we get such 
good members of Parliament as we do ; and that we 
do get them at all is, we fear, in a very small degree 
the fault of the electors, but chiefly the result of that 
esprit de corps which exists amongst English gentlemen, 
and which is ever found in an assemlily of patriots. 
It is not knowingly that the House of Commons is a 
party to anything dirty or mean. When they truckled 
to the Lords, and suffered the latter to continue the 
paper tax which they had rejected, they did so because 
there was not spirit enough in the country to back 
them, if they had resisted the dictation of the Lords. 
One Reform Bill after another languished and died for 
a similar reason. 

But to return to the gay — the graceful — the 
chivalrous Bernal Osborne, for many years the 
saucy boy — the enfant terrible — of the House of 
Commons. He is the chartered libertine of the 
Liberal party. . He is popular in the House, and 
popular out of doors. We owe him much for the 
liveliness he has given many a dull debate. His 
speeches arc always reported at considerable length. 



264 Men who have been M.P.'s. 

and — if we may believe tlie reporters^ and I see no 
reason to doubt them — tbey always elicit a great deal 
of laughter. He makes much fun out of Mr. Newde- 
gate ; and nothing pleased him better than to see Mr. 
Spooner shake his grey and reverend head. Occa- 
sionally he flew at higher game, and was only too happy 
if he could catch Mr. Disraeli napping. He has plenty 
of fun — -the fun of a good constitution and of animal 
spirits, and that fun he infuses into his speeches. 
Occasionally he is very happy in his remarks ; thus, in 
his speech on the Derby-Disraeli Ueform Bill of 1859, 
he protested against such " political millinery.'''' " The 
franchise,^^ he contended, " would be completely at the 
mercy of a scolding landlady or smoky chimney." He 
intimated to Mr. Disraeli that he had a heavy omnibus 
of country gentlemen to pull up the hill. Mr. Osborne 
is also great in interruptions, and pretty often raises a 
laugh. Thus, when Mr. Heywood was gravely arguing 
in favour of the retention of the Crystal Palace in 
Hyde Park, on the ground that gentlemen had no 
place of amusement at the West-end, Mr. Osborne^s 
question, " Where is Cremorne T' was greatly to the 
amusement of a House always disposed to laugh, even 
when hard at work. The wit in which Mr. Osborne 
deals is not difficult of achievement. Sydney Smith 
writes — " It is argued that wit is a sort of inexplicable 
visitation, that it comes and goes with the rapidity of 
lightning, and that it is quite as unattainable as beauty 
or just proportion. I am so much of a contrary way 



Mr. Bernal Osborne. 2G5 

of tliinkiug^ that I am convinced a man might sit down 
as systematically and as successfully to the study of wit 
as he might to the study of mathematics ; and I would 
answer for it that^ by giving up only six hours a day to 
learning wit^ he should come on prodigiously before 
midsummer, so that his friends should hardly know him 
again/^ Parliamentary wit, it is clear, is often studied 
and far-fetched. Mr. Wilberforce said of Sheridan, the 
general impression was, that he came to the House of 
Commons with his flashes prepared and ready to let off. 
Mr. Osborne, we fancy, resembles Sheridan in this re- 
spect. He is not a fi-equent debater. It is seldom 
he attempts to catch the Speaker's eye. So long as 
he is in office, he generally contents himself with a 
silent vote. Out of office he is vehement ; or if the 
ministry with which he is connected be in danger, he 
exerts himself, and makes one or two telling speeches. 
While M.P. for Dover, and at the Admiralty, he made 
no complaints ; but no sooner was he turned out of 
Dover, and a Conservative in his place, than his 
righteous soul was grieved beyond all endurance at 
the corrupt administration at the Admiralty. Such a 
state of affairs was intolerable, and not to be borne ; 
but Mr. Osborne once more at his old place, and he 
sleeps quietly, only Avaking up at quarter-day. It is 
as a parliamentary wit, rather than as a statesman, 
or delmter, or al)le administrator, that Mr. Osborne's 
reputation is made. Now, wit in the House of Com- 
mons, or in any large assembly, is of the lowest pus- 



26Q Men who have been M.P.'s. 

sible ciiaracter. For instaucej how cHldisli is a joke 
of some facetious judge on tlie bencli^ when it appears 
in print, and yet with what shouts of laughter was it 
received ! The cause of this is twofold : in the first 
place, in a business assembly, when men^s minds have 
long been on the stretch, the faintest excuse for a 
smile is welcomed as a grateful relief and change ; in 
the second place, there is a contagious principle in 
jokes as well as in fevers. A man is acted on by others. 
You laugh when you see others around you laughing. 
Go to a crowded theatre or public meeting. There is 
a mass of human bodies piled up in front of you, so 
you can neither see nor hear actor or speaker, wherever 
and whoever he may be; yet you hear every one 
around you laughing, and you do the same. The 
wits of the House of Commons are not very witty 
men ; but they are successful in raising laughter for 
the reasons already mentioned. The ready wit of a 
good, sound, physical constitution is invaluable in a 
man who is in a position to be a little independent 
and impudent. In a poor man, of course, it would 
not be tolerated an instant ; but Mr. Osborne is not 
poor, and hence he successfully elicits the loud laugh 
that speaks the vacant mind. Besides, an impudent 
man is always a successful one. There is no standing 
up against impudence. Sir Peter Laurie cannot put 
it down. It acts on us as the poet says vice acts on 
us — " We are first shocked ; then endure ; then em- 
brace." The Marylebone vestry were in arms against 



Edward Mali, Esq. 2G7 

Mr. Osborne because be called tbcm a lot of political 
tinkers — we sliould like to bavc seen tlie expression of 
Mr. Osborne^s face as be seriously assured tbem tbat 
" thinkers " was tbe word be used. 

Mr. Osborne^s career may be very easily told. He 
began life in tbe army. He tlien became a Liberal 
M.P. in favour of tbe ballot and free trade. In 1852 
he was appointed Secretary for tbe Admiralty. He 
sat in Parliament as M.P. for "Wycombe from 18^1 
to 1847, when he was returned for Middlesex, His 
connexion with tbe Admiralty helped to return him 
for Dover. Being, however, ultimately driven out of 
tbat borough, when the Tories had tbe command of 
the Admiralty influence, he retired into private life. 
To Liskeard was the merit due of having restored him 
to the public service. Liskeard and its representative, 
however, in time fell out, and for too short a while 
Nottingham rejoiced in Mr. Bernal Osborne as one of 
her representatives. 

EDWARD MIALL, ESQ. 

A LITTLE while ago the writer was spending the night 
on the North Sea while the wind was blowing a gale, 
and when it was far pleasanter to be at home in bed. 
Finding that the ship was making but little progress 
he made towards the engine-room to know tbe cause. 
" Why," said the engineer, in answer to his inquiries, 
" the captain says wo must wait for the daylight before 



268 Me7i who have been M.T's, 

we make the harbour/^ In that answer was the whole 
secret of political success. For instance, Mr. Miall 
has learned to wait for the daylight, and now, we 
trust, he has floated into the harbour. The lesson is 
hard to learn. It is so much more agreeable, espe- 
cially if you be a philosopher, to stick to your theory 
and to see it win. 

In the old Scandinavian theology the world was a 
living animal. The geologists who tell us its backbone 
is made of granite confirm the idea. Analogy suggests 
a similar arrangement in the moral world, at any rate 
so far as regards a backbone of fundamental principles. 
There they are lying deep down in the eternal fitness 
of things. Above them there may be quicksands and 
rubbish, and debris of all kinds, but without you build 
on a principle you build in vain. About thirty years 
ago there was great danger of the Dissenting public 
forgetting this. That public was not a very logical 
body. Its dissent was more practical than theoretical. 
The chapel filled because at the church nothing better 
than a barren morality was preached, and because in 
the week the preacher often lived at variance with 
that ; but in his heart of hearts, especially in re- 
spectable circles, the Dissenter venerated the national 
establishment, and fervently longed for the day when 
the sporting, hunting, drinking, SAvearing parson of his 
time should be superseded by clergymen of the school 
of which the late Mr. Simeon, of Cambridge, was the 
head. Toleration was the boon for which the Dis- 



Edward Midi, Esq. 2 GO 

sentcr craved^ and he was thankful for it. If a clergy- 
man went so far as to shake hands with the humble 
pastor of the meeting-house, and to stand on the same 
platform with him on special occasions, such as Bible 
Society anniversaries, good deacons wept for joy, and 
in many quarters it was believed that the Millennium 
had come. A few, a very few, took higher ground. 
In that grand declaration, " My kingdom is not of 
this world," they had learnt that God's truth needed 
not the magistrate — that it flourished only as it 
touched men^s hearts and modified their lives, that it 
was paralysed rather than strengthened by State 
patronage and support. 

This truth had become very dear and precious to a 
young, spare minister of the Congregational denomina- 
tion preaching at Leicester in a large chapel, and 
amongst a people of more than average culture. He 
had been born at Portsea somewhere about the year 
1809. In his youth he had originally turned his 
attention to scholastic duties ; subsequently he became 
a student at Wymondley College, Herts, and then 
settled, as the phrase is, at Ware, in the same county. 
From Ware he had moved to Leicester. It seemed 
to him the time had come for the Christian Church to 
learn the secret of its strength — to cease to trust in 
Parliament or Acts of Parliament. As the Church 
Establishment was founded on the very opposite 
theory — on the superiority of the compulsory over the 
voluntary principle, it was against that his righteous 



270 Men loho have been M.P.'s. 

indignation was aroused. He gave up the pulpit ; lie 
left Leicester; lie came to London. He founded, 
with the aid of many friends and sympathisers, a 
newspaper to show what wrong was done to God and 
man by State Churchism and priestcraft. The name 
of the paper was the Nonconformist — of its founder 
Edward Miall. He made some enemies, but more 
friends. Boldness always captivates the young, and 
they rallied round him. The young men of 1840 
are the preachers and teachers and the masters of to- 
day ; and thus to the world Mr. Miall stands out as 
the clearest advocate and ablest exponent of modern 
Dissent. That such a man should have no place in 
the representative assembly of the nation is a serious 
mistake ; and it was to the credit of Bradford — alas, in 
vain — that it fixed upon such a one as the unanimous, 
or nearly so, choice of her Liberalism and Dissent. 

Mr. Miall first contested Southwark, but it was 
Rochdale that had the merit of first returning him to 
Parliament. He lost his seat when so many of the 
chiefs of the popular party lost theirs, at the time of 
the Chinese war, and since then he has unsuccessfully 
contested Tavistock. In Parliament, in spite of a voice 
not very strong, and of a mannerism somewhat stiff" 
and angular, he made considerable way. His position 
as the mouthpiece of the large Dissenting public was 
at once recognised and respected. Nor has his Par- 
liamentary experience been lost npon him. To the 
theorist everything is straightforward and clear and 



Edicard MiaU,E.sq. 271 

beautiful. You grant the premises and the conclusion 
must follow. The abstract philosopher in his study, 
and with his pipe, has a faith that can move moun- 
tains : put such a man in the House of Commons, set 
him practically to work, and he learns there is another 
logic quite as strong as that of the abstract phi- 
losopher, making no allowance for disturbing causes, 
and evolving renovated worlds out of the depths of his 
inner consciousness, and that is the inexorable logic 
of events. The passionless doctrinaire plays chess in 
utter ignorance of his adversary's moves, and he often 
blunders as much as the most impulsive and unreason- 
ing of platform orators. The philosopher Square was 
but an indifferent character after all, though, to quote 
Fielding, " he measured all actions by the unalterable 
rule of right and the eternal fitness of things.^' In 
politics, as at sea, however correctly you steer by the 
compass, you must, to be safe, wait for the daylight. 
With what care and labour did Mr. Miall, in his 
earlier editorial years, devote himself to the Subject of 
manhood suffrage ! yet we have just passed through a 
great Parliamentary Reform settlement without the 
name being ever uttered, or in a whisper so feeble as 
to be scarce audible ! How very plainly and forcibly 
has Mr. Miall shown the mischievous effect of the 
State interfering in education ; yet now the nation is 
unanimous in its demand that the first thing to be 
done by the new House of Commons is to provide a 
general system of national education, and Mr. Miall 



272 Men wlio have he en M.P.'s. 

tells the people of Bradford that he will now devote 
his " best energies to shaping the practical measures 
which are intended to give effect to the will of the 
people in this matter/'' Then, again, there was the 
Anti-State-Church Association, of which Mr. Miall 
was the life and soul. What refreshing distinctness 
there was in the title ! how — to a Dissenter — rigid and 
uncompromising, how bold and manly the programme ; 
no quibbling about Dissenters^ grievances, no petti- 
fogging petitioning about Church-rates, no milk-and- 
water attempts to ameliorate what had better be abo- 
lished ; the evil was not in the effects of the system, 
but in the system itself — the un-Christian alliance of 
the Church and State. Attack the State Church, level 
that to the ground, and Dissenters' grievances and 
Church-rates will disappear. And now the Anti- State 
Church Association is a society with a name so long 
and roundabout that I may not trust myself to quote 
it from memory, and its chief practical work is oppo- 
sition to Church-rates. Daylight has come, and Mr. 
Miall has learnt from it how more safely and usefully 
to steer his course. The very men who were most 
strongly opposed to him are now on his side. 

Many of Mr. MialFs writings have been reprinted 
from the Nonconformist, and have met with a favourable 
reception at the hands of the public. As a writer he 
is distinguished by clearuess and power, and his topics 
are almost as much now as in his pulpit days more or 
less religious. The Nonconformist is decidedly a re- 



The Bt. Hon. Edward Ilorsman, 273 

ligious paper^ and was the first to give the improved 
tone intellectually to the religious press of the country 
which is the characteristic of our age. In purely 
secular pursuits we hear little of Mr. MiaU. It is 
understood that he writes a weekly leader for one of 
the most widely-circulated of om' weekly contem- 
poraries, and as one of the commissioners appointed to 
inquire into the state of education in England he dis- 
charged his duties in a way claiming public regard. 
He is stouter than he was, he has a bushier beard than 
was his wont, he does not dress in black as it is to be 
presumed he did when preaching at Leicester, but as 
much now as then his earnest religiousness is evident 
in all he says or does. He is a man you feel you may 
depend upon ; not a Bohemian litterateur, or a man of 
many-sided crotchets, but one spurning all ignoble 
ways, holding to truth and duty as the pole-star of 
life, mild in demeanour, inflexible in purpose, not 
elated when crowned with success, not cowed when 
covered with defeat. 



RIGHT HON. EDWARD HORSMAN. 

That was a happy idea of Mr. Bright's in which he 
described certain discontented M.P/s as living in a 
kind of political Cave Adullara. There are in the 
House a set of people whom it is impossible to please, 
for whom Reformers go too fast and Conservatives too 
slow — in whom tlie critical faculty is in excess — who 

T 



274 Men who have been M.P.'s. 

can see faults * more clearly than merits — who can 
originate nothing and support nothing. Of this class 
the Parliamentary lead belongs by right to Mr. 
Horsman^ whose promising career seems to have been 
stopped by a sudden blight^ and whose young aflPections 
now run to waste, and " water but the desert.^'' 

In 1836 a young member took his seat as M.P. for 
Cockermouth. The impulse given by the Eeform 
movement in many quarters was dying out. A re- 
action fatal to the Whigs had commenced. The 
Reform Parliament had long been dissolved; and 
Sir Eobert Peel had gained a hundred additional 
Members, and for a few months had retained office till 
driven away from it by a combination of Whigs and 
followers of Daniel O'Connell. Lord John Russell 
had returned to office, but not to power. He had the 
Court against him, the great landlords against him. 
In the Upper House Government measures were 
mutilated or thrown out, just as it seemed good to 
the Duke of Wellington or Lord Lyndhm-st, the 
masters of the situation there ; and in the House of 
Commons those able speakers and administrators. Sir 
James Graham and Lord Stanley, had not only de- 
serted Lord RusselFs ranks, but had become bitter 
opponents. The Duke of Richmond and the Earl of 
Ripon had also withdrawn from the Administration. 
Thus shattered and shorn of their strength, the Whigs 
at this time feebly engaged in a hopeless struggle. 
It is true that they had done much. They had car- 



The Bt. Hon. Edward Tlorsman. 27 o 

ried Parliamentary Reform ; they had relieved the 
Roman Catholies of Ireland by legislating on the 
tithe question ; they had reformed the principal abuses 
of the municipal system ; India and China had been 
thrown open to free trade, and slavery had been 
abolished in our colonies ; but now they were resting 
on their oars and babbling of finality^ as if there could 
be such a thing in a world where evil is eternal and 
ever youngs — where, stamped out here, it springs up 
there, — where, cut down in the day, in the night it 
renews its hateful life. Between the two stools of 
Conservative fear and Radical alienation, the Whig 
Cabinet was in daily danger of falling down. They 
needed an external impulse and an infusion of fresh 
blood. With this view Coekermouth sent as her re- 
presentative Mr. Horsman. His programme was 
satisfactory. On his banner he inscribed, " An 
efficient Church Reform, vote by ballot, and the 
removal of all the taxes on knowledge/' Here was a 
Radical bill of fare. What more could the hungriest 
of them require ? 

For a while, with all the zeal of a first love, Mr. 
Horsman played his part, and Coekermouth had rea- 
son to be proud of her M.P. The Church was not in 
good odour then ; for the abuses connected with 
Church property were simply infamous, and required 
reform. Here were bishops, and deans, and chap- 
ters, rolling in wealth, while working clergymen 
were starving, and ignorance and heathenism 

t2 



276 Men who have been M.P.'s. 

were spreading all around. If men pointed to 
a scandalous abuse, to a flagrant instance of epis- 
copal nepotism, or to some dirty transaction that 
savoured more of filthy lucre than of the spirit of 
Christ, they were called infidels and Radicals, and the 
cry of " The Church in danger V was raised. At 
length. Commissioners were appointed to take care 
of Church property, and lo ! a greater scandal was the 
result. These holy men thought more of themselves 
than of spiritual destitution. Souls could wait, they 
argued, hut bishops' palaces could not; and so the 
Bishop of Oxford had 6500/. for beautifying his 
palace at Cuddesdon, and the Bishop of Bath and 
Wells 4000/. for melon-pits and conservatories, and 
others more, out of the funds set apart for the build- 
ing of new churches and the augmentation of small 
livings. Most mercilessly were these proceedings 
dragged to light and condemned in Parliament by 
Mr. Horsman. This ardent reformer was a terrible 
thorn in the sides of bishops and ecclesiastical digni- 
taries like the late reverend and noble Francis North^ 
Earl of Guildford, who, as rector of St. Mary's, 
Southampton, received 3000/. a year, while he paid 
his curate 80/. The late Bishop of London was 
especially singled out for attack by Mr. Horsman. 
This venerable man kept insisting that his income was 
diminishing, in spite of the enormously increased 
value of what was known as the Bishop of London's 
estate in Paddington, — an estate estimated as certain 



The Bt. Hon. Edward Ilorsman. 277 

to produce 100^000/. a year. Mr. Horsman asked 
" how was it that, after the erection of such an extent 
of handsome and apparently profitable buildings, 
covering an extent of 400 acres, the right reverend 
prelate having signed about 2000 leases, and those not 
let upon fines, but upon a steady and permanent rent, 
increasing as the buildings themselves increased, — 
how happens it, I ask, that in the case of episcopal 
estates the ordinary rules of cause and efiect are com- 
pletely reversed, and a town property becomes less 
valuable the more it is built upon, and that when a 
large tract of land is turned from a waste into a city, 
and its value calculated by the square foot instead of 
the square acre, the income should fall as the rental 
increases ? I cannot explain it. It is impossible to 
doubt the fidelity of an episcopal return. All I can 
say is. What an idea does it give of episcopal manage- 
ment !" Such speeches were unpleasant ; the more 
so because they were unanswerable. But they did an 
immense amount of good. They strengthened the 
Church in spite of itself. In 1850 the Ecclesiastical 
Commission was reconstructed. Waste and mis- 
management of Church funds are now the exception. 
Prior to 1863, benefices with 10,000 inhabitants had 
been endowed up to 300/. a year. In 1801 the Com- 
missioners augmented to the same amount benefices 
with 8000 souls ; and then they did the same fcr 
districts which had between 6000 and 8000 inhabitants. 
They then proceeded to endow in a similar manner 



278 Men who have been M.T's. 

the income of every benefice in public patronage the 
population of which is not less than 5000. Mr. Hors- 
man and the Whigs were in reality the true friends 
of the Church. 

"We have said Mr. Horsman entered Parliament in 
1836. In 1841 he became a Lord of the Treasury, 
and in 1856 was Chief Secretary for Ireland. This 
appears to have been the turning-point in his career. 
He resigned his office in 1857^ because^ according to 
his own account, he had nothing to do, or, as others 
say, because he contrived to offend most of the Irish 
M.P.^s with whom he came in contact. Since that 
time more than one Liberal administration has been 
formed, and on the Treasury Benches have been seated 
M.P.-'s with neither Mr. Horsman^s abilities, experi- 
ence, nor Parliamentary position. Such a state of 
things Mr. Horsman does not approve of. Stroud 
then returned him as a Liberal, yet he found fault with 
all the measures proposed by the Liberals. Gradually 
he has been receding from his party. The leading 
measures of that party since Mr. Horsman^s retire- 
ment have been Mr. Gladstone's budgets, the French 
Treaty, and the Franchise Bill. All these measures 
have been the subject of his studied invective and 
hostile criticism. Surely he is very unfortunate in his 
Parliamentary position ! He is a man of first-rate 
abilities — he is an admirable speaker, but he is inde- 
pendent and unpopular. " It is folly,''"' said Mr. 
Wellesley Pole to Plumer Ward, "to attempt to be a 



The Bt. Hon. Edward Horsman. 279 

power in the House of Commons without a party/' 
Of this folly Mr. Horsman is guilty. 

Mr. Horsman, when he spoke, generally secured a 
seat below the gangway on the Liberal side on the 
front bench. Personally, he is a fine-looking man, 
tall, thin, and gentlemanly — his hair is dark, and his 
whiskers are streaked with gray (he was born as far 
back as 1807), and his face does not denote good 
temper ; but his style is polished — his command of 
language extensive — his voice clear and his delivery 
striking and impressive. I should think his speeches 
are carefully and conscientiously prepared. He 
speaks like a man who respects himself and his audi- 
ence. You may differ from Mr. Horsman, you may 
think him unduly critical and captious ; but you can 
hear him. The House looks upon him as one of its 
leading orators, and the Conservatives, at any rate, 
applaud his speeches. Indeed, it is to them Mr. 
Horsman must mainly trust; the neutral party of 
which he aims to be the head, as yet has no existence. 
The head is there, but the tail has yet to come. 
Neutrality in politics is an impossibility ; you must 
either advance or recede. Nations, like individuals, 
can never stand still. 

Little more need be said of Mr. Horsman, save 
that he was educated at Rugby, that he was called to 
the Scottish bar in 1832, and that he married in 1811, 
Charlotte, daughter of the late J. C. Ramsden, Esq., 
M.P. We would acknowledge that he has done the 



280 Men ivJio have been M.P.'s. 

State some service. Gratitude is graceful ; and 
Liberal and Dissenting Stroud, in supporting Mr. 
Horsman, showed that constituents are not forgetful, 
and are slow to take offence. There was exhibited 
towards him a generous forbearance, to which, however, 
Mr. Horsman found at length there was an unmis- 
takeable limit. It is well to be an orator, but 
deeds are better than words ; even household voters 
have sense enough to know that. Another thing also 
is clear to them now — that is at the best but a doubtful 
liberality which expends itself in obstructing, and as 
far as possible defeating, the only possible existing 
Liberal Administration. The British public will never 
cordially take to Reformers who vote against Reform ; 
to clergymen who write " Essays and Reviews ;" to 
bishops who demonstrate that our old Hebrew Bible is 
not to be trusted. 

WILLIAM S. LINDSAY, ESQ. 

A GOOD man of business need not necessarily be a bad 
politician. In England trade and commerce have been 
looked upon almost as ignoble ; only a landed pro- 
prietor could be a true gentleman, and contained the 
raw material out of which might be formed the ac- 
complished orator or the heaven-born statesman. 
This idea has been latterly somewhat rudely shattered 
by the severe logic of facts, but it is a fallacy which 
exists still in a mild form, especially in agricultural 
districts. Hence is it that even in our time the 



TFilliam S. Lindsay, Esq. 281 

regular red tapists are very much annoyed at a gigantic 
innovation introduced wlien Lord Palmerston had be- 
come Premier. They were angry that a man of busi- 
ness should have been sent to Paris to negotiate a com- 
mercial treaty^ and they were still more angry when 
an extensive shipowner was reported to have gone to 
America to try and get better terms from the American 
Government for our shipping than hitherto they had 
been able to do. This complaint might be well founded if 
our distinguished and noble diplomatists were well ac- 
quainted with commercial affairs. As notoriously they 
are not^ there can be no harm on special occasions in 
calling in the aid of men well acquainted with par- 
ticular subjects. Surely Mr. Cobden knew some- 
thing about the manufactures of Lancashire and York- 
shire, and Mr. Lindsay ought to know something 
about ships. Our great statesmen may cram for a 
specific object, but knowledge so acquired is of very 
doubtful value. The success of the late much-lamented 
Mr. Wilson was chiefly owing to the fact that he was 
practically, not theoretically, a man of business. For 
a similar reason Lord Cowley was glad enough to call 
in the aid of Mr. Cobden, and Mr. Lindsay set sail 
for the United States. 

A few years since the name of Mr. Lindsay was 
put very prominently befoi'c the public. There was a 
time when the Administrative Ilcform Association was 
very popular, and was not Mr. Lindsay one of its 
greatest men ? There was a time when emigration 



282 Men who have been M.P.'s. 

was in vogue, and did not Mr. Lindsay^s ships form 
the bridge by which the ocean was passed, and El 
Dorado, as some idly dreamt, won ? And when the 
ruined British shipowners — the men who amassed 
fabulous wealth by the trade they denounced as irre- 
trievably ruined — were moving heaven and earth for a 
return, in some form or other, of Protection, they could 
find no language bad enough or harsh enough for Mr. 
Lindsay, because he would not join them in what he 
deemed their mistaken course. It was almost amusing, 
at the City meeting held a few years ago, after 
Mr. Lindsay had tried to get a word in on behalf 
of Free Trade, to hear Duncan Dunbar recal the word 
" friend^^ he had applied to Mr. Lindsay {" a man who 
could utter such sentiments as Mr. Lindsay had, he,''^ 
Mr. Dunbar, '' could never, never call his friend^^) . 
One was reminded of the famous scene in the House 
of Commons, when the aged Burke renounced for ever 
the friendship of his pupil and admirer. Fox. 

In the year 1816, in a humble station of life, Mr. 
Lindsay was born at Ayr — that town dear to all ad- 
mirers of Burns for its 

" Honest men and bonnie lasses." 

At six, the future ship-owner was left an orphan ; and, 
when only fifteen years of age, he commenced his 
career, leaving home with only three shillings and 
sixpence in his pocket, to push his fortunes as a sea 
boy. He worked his passage to Liverpool by trim- 



William S. Lindsay, Esq. 283 

ming coals in the coal-hole of a steamer. Arrived in 
that great commercial emporium, he found himself 
friendless and destitute, and seven long days passed 
before he was able to find employment. Let those 
Avho tell us that the poor man has no chance in this 
country — that, be he industrious, moral, and intelli- 
gent, he can never rise — that capital is a hard task- 
master, and holds its victims in worse than American 
slavery — learn, then, that during this time young 
Lindsay experienced the most abject poverty — that he 
was reduced to the necessity of sleeping in the sheds 
and streets of Liverpool, after eating nothing but what 
he begged for ! At length he was fortunate enough 
to be engaged as cabin-boy on board a West India- 
man. Frightftd were his hardships even then ; 
but his heart never failed him, and in three years he 
rose to be second mate. The following year he was 
first mate, and in his nineteenth year became captain 
of the Olive Branch. By this time he had had enough 
of the sea. He had suffered one shipwreck ; had had 
both legs and one arm broken ; had been cut down by 
a sabre stroke in a hostile encounter in the Persian 
Gulf. So we are not surprised to find Mr. Lindsay in 
1841 agent for the Castle Eden Coal Company. In 
18 15 he removed to London, and laid the foundation 
of that extensive business which made him a com- 
petent authority on all matters connected with his 
craft, and which entitled him to rank with the mer- 
chant princes of the metropolis. 



284 Men who have heen M.P.'s. 

Mr. Lindsay, in the midst of his upward struggle 
from poverty to wealth, sedulously sought his own 
mental improvement. Instead of wasting his spare 
evening hours in dissipation and idleness, or even 
harmless recreation, he diligently sought to make up 
for the defects of his early education, and to acquire 
that knowledge which in his case emphatically be- 
came power. The result was he soon acquired popu- 
larity as a writer, especially by his important work on 
" Our Navigation and Mercantile Laws."*^ His next 
step was to get into Parliament. He contested New- 
port, Monmouthshire, in April, and Dartmouth in 
July, 1852. In March, 1854, after a severe struggle, 
by a majority of seventeen, he was returned for Tyne- 
mouth. In 1857 he was re-elected without opposition, 
and of Tynemouth he continued the representative till 
disabled by ill health. In every sense of the word he 
was a free trader. At the City meeting already referred 
to, he claimed the right to address the meeting in opposi- 
tion to the resolution, as he could not allow it to go 
forth that the distress of the shipping interest was attri- 
butable to the existing system of maritime commerce, 
or the repeal of the navigation laws. The resolu- 
tion and the memorial presented to the Crown were 
fallacious. He was favourable to reciprocity ; but not 
enforced reciprocity, because that was protection in 
its worst form. It would revive the war of classes and 
the system of commerce which prevailed in the time of 
Cromwell. Mr. Lindsay^s opponents may be right. 



William S. Linchay, Esq. 285 

but tlie extent of our shipping under free trade points 
to an opposite conclusion. 

In sizCj Mr. Lindsay resembles Mr. Cobden^ nor is 
he unlike him in shape ; but he has a redder face, 
darker hair, and his voice is of that rich Doric of which 
a little is quite enough. Pure Scotch is very pleasant 
to read in the Nodes Ambrosiance, but one soon tires 
of it in the House of Commons. It is very probable 
Mr. Lindsay would have remained an obscure man in 
that illustrious assembly, had not the Crimean war 
broken out, and our great heads of departments com- 
pletely broken down. Mr. Lindsay was fortunate in 
finding that the weakest part of the whole affair was 
precisely that which he knew most about. Accord- 
ingly he exposed Government blunders in many ways, 
and became all at once a notoriety. He was known 
to speak as one having authority. Had he not origi- 
nally been a cabin-boy, and now had he not at his 
command a fleet almost as extensive as that belonging 
to the Lords of the Admiralty ! Heads of depart- 
ments trembled, for they knew Mr. Lindsay understood 
his own business ; whereas, they could make neither 
head nor tail of theirs. The Times admitted Mr. 
Lindsay to be an authority, and the House of Com- 
mons, always ready to hear a man when he has some- 
thing to say, listened when he spoke ; strangers stared 
over the gallery, to the great disgust of the door- 
keepers, who in vain bawled out, " Keep your scats, 
gentlemen \" when Mr. Lindsay was on his legs. In 



286 Men ivho have been M.P.'s. 

the lobby he was pointed at as the man who was to save 
the State ; and when Old Drury opened its wide doors 
for the administrative reformers, and Mr. Lindsay was 
the attraction of the night, the multitudes who flocked 
in showed how easily and completely Mr. Lindsay had 
achieved an extensive fame. Yet Mr. Lindsay was no 
orator — no statesman — no scholar, with wise saws and 
modern instances. Burke would have turned from him 
with disgust, and Sheridan would have swallowed a 
bottle of wine in the attempt to elaborate, with regard 
to him, what he would have endeavoured to pass in 
society as some extempore jokes. A temporary emer- 
gency gave to Mr. Lindsay a temporary importance ; 
he said the right thing at the right time ; he had to 
perform the very easy task of picking holes in a very 
rotten coat, and he performed it easily. More than 
this he never attempted. As it is^ he has been for- 
tunate in life, more than most men, and need not be 
ungrateful or rail at the gods if he have not the privi- 
lege of being called to the Privy Council or of dying 
a Cabinet Minister. 

Nor is this to be regretted. A man is happier with- 
out the responsibilities of office. Still I like to point 
out to the illustrious stranger as imperial senators men 
who talk provincial English ; I like to say. Sir, thirty 
years back that man was a ragged boy; he was lucky; 
he got on the right track ; he made a fortune, and the 
people of this country, out of their deference to wealth 
combined with talent, chose him as a representative. 



The m. Hon. James TTJiifeside. 287 

Let me here demonstrate the evanescent nature of re- 
putations. Except when ship-owners are clamorous, 
Mr. Lindsay is forgotten. 

" OL. no, we never mention Mm, 
His name is never heard." 

His life devoted to commerce, his intellect sharpened, 
yet did not make him a statesman. The shipping 
question over, he sank into the usual track of ordinary 
M.P.'s; in an assembly of educated gentlemen, of 
logical reasoners, of trained rhetoricians, he was on 
general subjects easily distanced, and, by his own 
confession^ was easily duped into voting for the Derby 
Reform Bill, in the belief that it was to have been all 
that the most ardent reformer could desire. It is not 
wealth — not success in life — not a lucky speculation, 
that can compensate for the liberal views and opinions, 
which, it is true, education does not invariably supply, 
but which rarely exist without it. In an assembly 
which ought to be as eminent for its genius and talent 
and statesmanship as it is now lamentably the reverse, 
we want something more even than practical men. 

THE RT. HON. JAMES WHITESIDE.* 

I CANNOT understand the use of long sermons, or long 
speeches. I suppose the House of Commons can. 
For instance, let us take the Kars debate. Lord Pal- 
meratou confessed — what every one knew — that Lord 

* Since made an Irish judge. 



288 Men who have been M.P.^s. 

Stratford de Redcliffe was very mucli to blame ; that 
he is an obstinate,, irascible old gentleman^ with a 
laudable hatred to Russia^ and an intense love of 
bullying; that he fancied he had 7000?. a year for 
the sake of playing the Bashaw on a grand scale ; and 
that it was high time he were ordered home. Why, 
then, for three nights did people keep on reiterating 
this, or making long speeches to which no one listened, 
and repeating points of which every one was convinced ? 
One reason — and the chief one — was this : the House is 
an old-fashioned assembly, and acts according to pre- 
cedent. People made long speeches, and got very red 
in the face, and indulged in pompous declamation, 
and were always plunging the country into a crisis in 
the days of Pitt and Fox, so why should not Britons 
do so now ? are they not Britons ? and " Britons 
never, never, never will be slaves." Unfortunately 
M.P.^s forget the days of Pitt and Fox were the days 
of the slow coaches, when a man was a week or a 
fortnight going from Edinburgh to London, and made 
his will first. These are the days of Hansoms and 
electric telegraphs — of the steam-ship and the railway, 
and the thoughts that shake mankind. 

Again, this is as much a lawyer-ridden as it is a 
priest-ridden country. What the curate — starched, 
lean, and leaden-eyed — is to the weak-minded females 
of Putney and Hampstead, the lawyers are to the rest 
of the House of Commons — a terror by night and a 
plague by day. Unfortunately for the country, almost 



The Ut. Hon. Jame^ Wkiteslda. 2S9 

all our places are given to barristers, aud therefore 
the barristers must make speeches, good, bad, ofteu — 
chiefly — indifferent, or they will not get Government 
places. As they have tongues to sell, they must let 
the Government have a taste of their quality ; so the 
House wastes its time, and the strongest constitutions 
give way. Mr. John Bright was seriously hurt by his 
parliamentary attendance ; Mr. Blackett, one of the 
most promising young men in the House, not long since 
died ere his prime, thoroughly worn out. Will the 
House never subside into short speeches and common 
sense ? I fear not, so long as the constituencies return 
gentlemen of the long robe. I read somewhere a tale 
of a French opera performer who visited Constanti- 
nople, and had the honour of performing before the 
ruler of the Ottomans. With Oriental gravity, the 
Sultan looked and smiled, and made no sign. The 
Frenchman exerted himself to the utmost ; his pi- 
rouetting was extraordinary, indeed terrific, if not al- 
most sublime. The performance over, the Sultan beck- 
oned the performer. The latter drew near, expecting 
as the reward of his unparalleled agility, the shawls of 
Cashmere, the silks of Persia, the jewels of Golconda, 
possibly the revenues of a province. Gravely smoking 
his chibouque, said the Sultan, ^' I have seen So-and- 
so and So-and-so (naming one operatic star after 
another), but I have never yet seen any one who 
perspired as much as you." The tale may be mythical, 
nevertheless it has a true flavour. The Sultan is the 

u 



290 Men wJio have been M FJs. 

British House of Commons ; the French operatic per- 
former is Mr. Whiteside. I should imagine^, when he 
speaks^ no one perspires so much as the member for 
the University of Dublin. I am sure he ought to do 
so, for he is the longest and loudest speaker in the 
House. Lord Palmerston never said a wittier thing 
than when^ in the Kars debate, he assured the hon. 
member that all who saw his speech would consider 
it as highly creditable to his physical powers. 

As a party man Mr. Whiteside is very useful. Occa- 
sionally he makes a blunder,, as he did in that Kars 
debate, which, after engrossing three nights, ended in 
smoke, and rather aided than damaged the Govern- 
ment ; but I imagine there are few more useful or 
ready gentlemen on his side of the House. Somehow 
or other, an Irishman seems naturally a thorn in 
the sides of the Saxon; and in Ireland party spirit 
exists in a degree of which we on this side of the Irish 
Channel can form no idea. In a parliamentary melee, 
no one is so indispensable as an Irishman; he lays 
about him thoroughly ; with him, evidently the affair 
is no child^s play ; he has an en^dable command of very 
expressive adjectives, rendered still more expressive by 
means of his brogue, which, however educated he may 
be, he finds it impossible utterly to shake off; and, as 
I fear there is a great deal of jobbery in Irish politics, 
he has very often on his side the advantage which 
every man has when he happens to be in the right. 
This fervour is natural and to the manner bom. 



The m. Hon. James Whiteside. 291 

Ireland is famed for faction fights^ and a party is bnt 
a faction on a larger scale. How fierce and fanatic 
Irishmen can be we have seen exemplified in the 
conduct of the Orangemen to the Prince of Wales 
while in Canada^ and in such meetings as that of the 
Religious Propagation Society at Down, when the 
Bishop was almost kicked out of the chair and the 
rector of the parish seated in his place. It is in this 
fervour that we must seek the cause of the success of 
Irishmen in parliament. Sheridan and Burke, in the 
palmy days of parliamentary eloquence, are splendid 
specimens of this ; nor must we forget Canning or 
Grattan, Sheil, or O'Connell, or Plunket, all names 
indicative of great oratorical power, and of men who 
achieved great parliamentary success. An Irish 
writer tells us that " the fighting age in Ireland is 
from sixteen to sixty," and I may add that this is 
true as far as the House of Commons is concerned. 
It is true we have no Irishmen so young as sixteen, 
but we have them older than sixty, and the most 
ancient of these scents a battle from afar, and rushes 
to it as the war-horse of the Book of Job. 

Dod tells me that James Whiteside, son of the late 
Rev. William Whiteside, and brother of the Rev. Dr. 
Whiteside, Vicar of Scarborough, was born at Dcl- 
gany, county of Wicklow, 1800 ; educated at the 
University of Dublin, where he graduated M.A. with 
honours, and the London University College law 
classes, where he took honours. He was called to 

u 2 



292 Men who have he en M.P.'s. 

the bar in Ireland in 1830, and is a Queen's Counsel ; 
was Solicitor- General for Ireland from March till De- 
cember,, 1852 ; author of works on Italy and Ancient 
Rome; a Conservative in favour of a grant to the 
Church Education Society — rather an obscure defini- 
tion of a man's political opinions ; first returned for 
Enniskillen, April, 1851. But I must point him out in 
the House of Commons. You will see him on the first 
bench of the Opposition, sitting somewhat near the 
end furthest from the Speaker. Of course he is bald. 
In England no man attains distinction until he has 
reached an age when time begins to tell upon the face 
or figure. Our young poets are middle-aged, and our 
rising novelists are compelled to resort to wigs. We 
have young-looking statesmen, but then they are 
lords. We English are wonderfully afraid of talent 
in political life. As much as possible we fence round 
place and power, and put up " No admittance except 
to the aristocracy ;" and when a man with brains 
does force his way in, it is generally when he has be- 
come almost worn out in the struggle. The only ex- 
ception is that in favour of lawyers ; as the chances 
are that a lawyer, from the force of habit, becomes 
attached to some party or other, and thus gets a start 
which, if he be clever, he will be sui'e not to lose. 
Mr. Whiteside won his laurels by his defence of 
O'Connell, and, on the strength of that defence, at 
first seemed rather inclined — if I may be allowed such 
a phrase — to ride the high horse. Latterly, however. 



The Bt. Hon. James Wliiteside. 293 

he lias assumed less, and gained a respectable posi- 
tion. There was a time when lawyers were the 
champions of popular right, and the dread of all who 
assumed a despotic power. " Who/^ says Mr. Towns- 
end, " took the lead in those memorable discussions 
which established the freedom of his Majesty's poor 
Commons, and confirmed a wavering House in their 
resolution, but Sir Edward Coke, Selden, and Lyttle- 
ton ? Who but these great constitutional lawyers 
managed the memorable conference with the Lords 
which preceded the Bill of Eights ? Who drew up 
that ISIagua Charta but Sergeant Glanville, and Pym, 
and Hyde ? At the Restoration, the cautious wisdom 
of Sir Matthew Hale would have fettered the King 
with conditions that might have saved his reign from 
alternating between anarchy and despotism. Whose 
voice more loud than that of Maynard, Sawyer, 
Somers, and Williams in denouncing the tyranny of 
James ? — whose suggestions so valuable in establish- 
ing the happy Revolution ? Henry IV. on one occa- 
sion called a parliament from which he excluded law- 
yers ; old Coke tells us, ' The prohibition that no 
apprentice or man following the law shall be chosen, 
made the parliament fruitless, and never a good law 
passed thereat, and called the Ijaek-learning Pai-lia- 
ment.' " Mr. Whiteside docs not belong exactly to 
this class. He is undoubtedly too much of a party 
man, and out of his party he will never rise. The 
most nefarious characters — of course, I speak politi- 



294 Men who have been M.P.'s. 

cally — in this country are the Irish Orangemen ; men 
whose advent in the Green Isle was a result of victory, 
whose continuance there has been a curse ; who cared 
not that the nation rotted away — that the people 
grew up in heathenism^ that the land was ravaged with 
civil war^ so long as they grew rampant on the pa- 
tronage and privilege doled out to their class. It is 
not in Ireland as it was ; emigration, cholera, the 
potato famine, the Encumbered Estates Court, the 
growth of common sense in the English Cabinet where 
Ireland is concerned, have somewhat diminished 
the extent and the frightful consequences of what 
was called Protestant ascendancy in the Sister Isle ; 
but the habit of thought engendered by that fierce 
partisanship still lives, and in the person of the Eight 
Hon. James Whiteside still too often finds utterance 
also, in what should be the most enlightened assembly 
in the world. 

As an orator Mr. Whiteside seems to have chiefly 
studied Demosthenes^ advice as to action, and literally 
to have adopted it. It is all action with him. He 
has his countrymen^s great command of language, 
which is the command, as Whately remarks, of a rider 
over his horse when it is running away with him. 
His language is not pregnant with meaning, so as to 
afford delight and instruction when the occasion 
which called it into existence has passed away ; nor 
is it sharp and well defined, so as to hit hard home ; 
nor does he descend to plain, unadorned sense like 



John Stuart Mill, Esq. 295 

Cobden, or rise into a sublime personality like Dis- 
raeli. He has more the appearance of a lawyer 
strutting his hour upon the stage^ seeking to make 
mountains of hills, to invest the most obscure iuci- 
dcLts with the most important consequences, to keep 
the truth of the question altogether out of sight, and 
to be reckless of everything so that he succeeds in 
making out a case. I fear Mr. Whiteside forgets the 
advice of a celebrated countryman. "' When I told 
Curran,'^ says Moore, " of the superabundant floridiiess 
of the speech, he said to me, ' My dear Tom, it will 
aever do for a man to turn painter merely upon the 
strength of having a pot of colours, unless he knows 
how to lay them on.^ " 

JOHN STUART MILL, ESQ. 

In his preface to his speeches on Reform, lately pub- 
lished, Mr. Lowe tells us there are three ways of 
treating political subjects, the theological, the meta- 
physical, and the inductive or experimental. The doc- 
trine of the divine right of kings is an instance of 
the first kind of treatment ; the argument so much 
relied on at Reform meetings in favour of extended 
suffrage, and the writings of James and John Mill, 
are examples of the second ; and discussions of the 
House of Commons on almost every other sub- 
ject except Reform, and the arguments against it, are 
examples of the third. This classification is correct, 



296 Men who have been M.P.'s. 

and of the class to wLich. lie belongs Mr. Mill is the 
distinguished head. A priori, it was not in one of the 
official class that yon would have expected such a phe- 
nomenon. " On the whole," wrote poor Haydon, 
after he had been painting the Reform Ministers in 
1842, " public men shrunk from discussion. They 
are so occupied with the fate of nations and their 
political relations, that truth even, on other points, 
seems unworthy investigation. Physical inquiry they 
detest, matters of taste they shun, religion they 
consider only as an engine of State ; and I do not 
think much extension of knowledge on general prin- 
ciples is to be acquired by intercourse with them. 
They are interesting from their rank and occupation, 
but a habit of having such mighty interests hanging 
on their decision generates a contempt for abstract 
deduction, and an indisposition to enter into matters 
of literature, arts, and morals." It is true Mr. Mill 
was not a public man in the same sense as Lords 
Grey, or Brougham, or Palmerston; but, like them, 
he was in office, and at the East India House, as 
well as elsewhere, circumlocution reigned supreme. 

It is said circumstances make the man. In Mr. 
MilFs case it was clear that he was doomed to be the 
greatest philosopher of the day. His father, Mr. 
James Mill, says a writer in the Westminster 
Review, '' was hardly less effective in conversation 
than by his pen. His colloquial fertility on philo- 
sophical subjects, his power of discussing himself and 



John Stuart Mill, Esq. 297 

stimulating others to discuss, his ready responsive in- 
spirations through all the shifts and windings of a 
sort of Platonic dialect — all these accomplishments 
were to those who knew him even more impressive 
than what he composed for the press. When to this 
we add a strenuous character, earnest convictions, and 
single-minded devotion to truth, with an utter disdain 
of mere paradox, it may be conceived that such a man 
exercised powerful intellectual ascendancy over younger 
minds. Several of those who enjoyed his society — 
men now at or past the maturity of life, and some of 
them in distinguished positions, remember and attest 
with gratitude such ascendancy in their own cases. 
.... When a father such as we have described, 
declining to send his son either to school or college, 
constituted himself schoolmaster from the beginning, 
and performed that duty with laborious solicitude — 
when, besides full infusion of modern knowledge, 
the forcing process applied by the Platonic Socrates 
to the youthful Thesetetus, was administered by Mr. 
James Mill continuously, and from an earlier age, to 
a youthful mind not less pregnant than that of Thcoe- 
tetus — it would be surprising if the son thus trained 
had not reached even a higher eminence than his father." 
The fruit borne by Mr. John Stuart Mill has been 
worthy of the culture bestowed, and, adds the writer 
of the article in question, the " Examination of Sir 
William Hamilton's Philosophy," " is at once his latest 
and his ripest product. '' Martinus Scriblerus we 



298 Men who have been M.P.'s. 

know failed to leach his son logic. He could never 
get him to rise to the abstract idea of a Lord Mayor. 
The unfortunate youth never could conceive of one 
apart from his fur cap and gold chain. Mr. James 
Mill had more success. 

Trained by his father in the school of abstract philo- 
sophy, the speculations connected therewith have ab- 
sorbed in the son the attention of a life. In the regions 
in which Mr. Mill has gained his laurels we may 
not attempt to follow. As a writer in the West- 
minster Review, and as an original thinker, Mr. 
Mill had long become distinguished ere he left the 
seclusion of the study for the bustle and rough work 
of the political arena. Perhaps it was his " Political 
Economy ■'■' that made his name universally familiar. 
We had all heard of the fairy tales of science, 
but certainly it was not in the department of it con- 
nected with statistics and the pursuit of wealth that 
we anticipated any such revelations. Mr. MilFs 
work appeared, however, and so clear was the 
style, so logical the arrangement, so generous was 
the living spirit of humanity by which it was 
inspired, that people began to wonder however they 
could have considered the speculations of political 
economy dull and devoid of interest. Other works 
succeeded, such as that " On Liberty,'' " Considera- 
tions on Representative Government,'" dealing equally 
with abstract principles, and equally warm and human 
in their treatment of them. The general public 



John Sfimrt Mill, Esq. 299 

avoided, it may be, his great work on " Logic," Lis 
" Dissertations and Diseussions," his " Examination of 
Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy ;" they were left 
to the scholar and the divine, but his other writings, 
as we have said, gained for him popularity and 
power. He became the head of a party ; the young 
and the enthusiastic rallied round him ; Westminster, 
in a noble burst of enthusiasm, made him her M.P,, 
and immediately after, the students of a Scotch Uni- 
versity, in a similar fit of enthusiasm, conferred their 
Rectorship on him. In neither case was the confi- 
dence of his friends misplaced. We have rarely read 
an abler address than that which Mr. Mill delivered 
at St. Andrew's. His success in the House of Com- 
mons justified the hopes of his friends. It did more. 
It taught the sceptics and the sneerers, that in debate 
a philosopher can be a man, as ready and as self- 
possessed as a practical man. At his first rising Mr. 
Mill had missed the right pitch for his voice, and his 
" stupid party " anticipated his failure. On the second 
occasion he was better heard, and their discomfiture 
was so much the more complete. The traditions of 
the House tell us, to succeed in it a man must enter 
it young. Mr. Mill, born in 1806, was bald and 
middle-aged, yet at once he got the chatty conversa- 
tional style in which the House rejoices, and suc- 
ceeded in convincing some and amusing all. It is a 
rare triumph at the same time to be witty as well as 
wise. 



300 Men who have been M.P.'s. 

Philosophers^ you may depend upon it^ are much 
alike all the world over. The orator for the million;, 
l)e he a Spurgeon or a Daniel CConnell^ is bound to 
be fat and fleshy. The abstract thinker is of a difi'erent 
temperament and frame. Mr. Mill is of a light com- 
plexion — is long and thin; his clear blue eye is deep 
sunk_, as if its gaze had been rather internal than ex- 
ternal. He has a brisk _, genial appearance, and is 
always neatly and scrupulously dressed in black. His 
appearance is different from that of any other member. 
His is not the horsey look of some, nor has he the 
business air of others, still less does he affect the 
style of a man of fashion. Altogether, he seems out 
of his element on his seat on the third row below the 
gangway on the Opposition side. The men around 
seem of a coarser and less refined nature. There is 
a genus loci connected with the House, of hard drinkers, 
mighty sportsmen, big blusterers, eager partisans. 
You would never expect to find a philosopher there, 
yet there is Mr. Mill; and there is not a more con- 
stant attendant, or one more able or willing to take 
his part in the debates when the opportunity occurs. 
Those acquainted with Mr. MilFs writings will be pre- 
pared to find in him a fearlessness in the application of 
his opinions which is perfectly refreshing. He has a 
scorn of dulness which renders him impervious to its 
attack. It is not the unpopularity of a conclusion 
that will force him to shrink from embracing it. He 
follows where reason leads the wav. Satisfied of his 



John Stuart Mill, Esq. 301 

logic, it is nothing to him that timid men forsake him 
as Churchmen shrink from heresy. It is said of Satan 
on his voyage in search of oiu' earth — 

" At last his sail-broad vans 
He spreads for fliglit, and in tlie surging smoke 
Uplifted spurns the ground ; tlience many a league, 
As in a cloudy chair ascending, rides 
Audacious." 

And thus Mr. Mill careers along in the world of 
thought, armed at all points, ready to hear as well as 
to talk, and defend as well as attack, a match for the 
hardest and direst and most self-possessed on the 
hostile benches before him. 




CHAPTER VIII. 



MEMBEES WHO HAYE BECOME PEERS. 



LORD JOHN RUSSELL.^ 



N 1811 Professor Playfair wrote to Miss 
Berry^ " I shall request to be permitted to 
introduce Lord John Russell to you. He is 
one of the most promising young men I ever saw.^' 
In 1813 this " promising young man " was returned to 
parliament as M.P. for Tavistock^ and became one of 
England^s foremost men. Had he been a very un- 
promising young man he would have been M.P. for 
Tavistock all the same. Lord John Russell won his 
laurels as a political reformer, yet in his early youth 
he was not a very ardent one. In 1819 Sir Francis 
Burdett — the leader of the then Radical party — made 
his annual motion on the question of Parliamentary 
Reform. In the course of the debate on it. Lord 
John said, " I agree in the propriety of disfranchising 
such boroughs as are notoriously corrupt, and I will 
give my consent to any measure that will restrict the 
duration of Parliament to three years, I cannot, how- 



* Eaised to the peerage as Earl Russell in 1861. 



Lord John Russell. 303 

ever^ pledge myself to support a measure that goes 
the leugth of proposing an inquiry into the general 
state of representation, because such an inquiry is cal- 
culated to throw a slur upon the representation of 
the country, and to fill the minds of the people with 
vague and indefinite alarms/^ His lordship at the 
end of the year unfolded his Reform Bill. '' I come 
now/' he said, " to the resolutions which I shall have 
the honom* to propose ; the two first declare that 
when a borough is accused of gross and notorious 
bribery and corruption, it shall cease to send members 
to Parliament, and that a great town or county shall 
enjoy the rights it has forfeited. On these heads I 
have nothing to add. The third declares that it is the 
duty of this House to consider of farther means to 
detect and prevent corruption in the election of mem- 
bers of Parliament The last resolution de- 
clares the opinion of the House that the borough of 
Grampound ought to be disfranchised.''^ Of course 
his lordship was in a miserable minority. In a 
few years after, the proposer of this milk-and-water 
scheme. Lord John Russell, was at the head of a vic- 
torious Reform party — a party that wrested Reform 
from a frightened aristocracy and a reluctant monarch ; 
and there was a general impression gone forth that a 
grateful nation would elect him dictator for life. Since 
then he has been said more than once to have politi • 
cally extinguished himself — a phrase used by thought- 
less writers, who forget that you cannot extinguish a 



304 Members who have become Peers. 

certain amount of territory in a territorial system of 
government. At the present time his lordship is 
not decidedly unpopular. As Secretary for Foreign 
Affairs^ coming after the Earl of Malmesbury, and re- 
presenting English sympathy with the cause of Italian 
nationality^ he not long since had a fair chance of 
becoming, in some quarters, a popular man again. 

How has Lord John Eussell sunk so low ? The in- 
quiry is not uninteresting. In the first place, we 
think the essential aristocratic nature of the man has 
something to do with it. To be genial is to be popular. 
Lord John Eussell cannot be genial. There is an icy 
tone in his voice and ghtter in his eye ; you may work 
for him — you may write for him — you may canvass 
for him — you may shout his praises till you are hoarse 
— and from his lordship you get civil acknowledg- 
ment, scarcely that. It is true his lordship is a liberal 
statesman, but in much the same manner as the Spar- 
tan Ephor, who, when charged by his wife with having 
abandoned half the privileges of his children, replied 
that he had done so in order that he might preserve 
for them the other half. Lord John Russell was born a 
political reformer — just as he is a Protestant. It would 
never do for the inmates of Woburn Abbey to be catho- 
licized, and no name is so sacred to the Whigs as that of 
Russell. Then again, his lordship has made grievous 
blunders — has alienated his friends and given encourage- 
ment to his foes. Then again, the days of strong go- 
vernmentj and of the sway of individuals, as regards the 



Lord John Russell, 303 

Whigs, is gone. We have leaders, but wheje are the 
led? We have officers, but where are the rauk and file? 
Pitt had a majority to his mind. The way in which 

the country gentlemen, and rotten borough proprietors 
and representatives, followed that jolly old model 
Whig, Sir Robert Walpole, into the lobby of the House 
of Commons, was enough to remind a certain gentle- 
man who shall be nameless, 

* " How Noah and his creeping tilings 

Went up into the Ark." 

Sir Robert Peel, like a Colossus, bestrode the Protec- 
tionist Squires, whom he changed into Free-traders ; 
but these men belong to the past. Men have lost 
confidence in the judgment and tactics and wisdom 
of those whom they were wont to call their leaders. 
The individual allegiance to party of which our fathers 
boasted, exists no longer. Every man does that which 
is right in his own eyes. It was not so when his 
lordship served his political apprenticeship. Then, as 
the scion of the great Whig Duke, Lord John Russell 
had a right to expect public patronage and support, 
and he got it. The stage was clear ; all that was requi- 
site was a certain amount of industry. Everywhere the 
fable of the tortoise and the hare is realized, but no- 
where more so than in the House of Commons. To a 
friend entering Parliament, Will)erforcc said, " Attend 
to business, and do not seek occasions of display. If 
you have a turn for speaking, the proper time will come. 
Let speaking take care of itself. I never go out of the 

X 



306 Members who have become Peers. 

way to speak^ but make myself acquainted with the 
business^ and then if the debate passes my door^ I step 
out and join it/^ We have a similar advice from a still 
greater man. When Sir George Murray attempted to 
excuse himself from taking office under the Duke of 
Wellington^ on account of his inexperience in public 
speaking, " Pho, pho/^ said the Duke, " do as I do — 
say what you think, and don^t quote Latin." In ac- 
cordance with the advice of these men, did Lord John 
Hussell commence his political career. Had he acted 
more closely in accordance with it, he would have 
been more successful. But when a second-rate man 
attempts the part of a first-rate man, we all know 
what must be the result. It is not then difficult to ac- 
count for the occasional decline in popularity of Lord 
John Russell. It is a slander on the public to impute 
it to the fickleness of the people. The people are prone 
to idolatry, and a lord on the liberal side is irresistible. 
Any electioneering agent will tell you it is almost im- 
possible to beat such a man. Lord John Russell espe- 
cially has little reason to complain; the public have 
borne with him in the most patient manner ; they have 
picked him out of the mud; they have washed him, 
and put clean things on him ; they have patted him on 
the head, and bidden him be a good boy and try again. 
They have repeated these interesting processes over 
and over again : they have forgiven him seven times, 
and seem about to do so seventy times seven ; yet Lord 
John is rarely popular. Indeed, it may be almost 



Lord Jo Jul Russell. 307 

hinted that the whole career of Englancrs constitutional 
and heroic statesman has been a mistake. Lord John 
is by birth the son of one duke and the brother of 
another. In his youth he associated with the Edinburgh 
Reviewers, and learnt the quantum sufficit of Liberal 
slang. He has been an unfortunate man through life 
— always hard up — always out of luck. He wrote a 
novel that did not sell — a history that no one would 
read. His philosophy was equally worthless, and his 
poetry — he wrote a drama — was (the word is harsh, 
but we really can find no other so fitting) — his poetry 
•was positively damned. Thus abhorred by gods and 
men, he became a politician, and had a finger in that 
dainty dish, the Reform Bill, by which the people of 
England were most confoundedly deceived. The only 
thing that can be said of him positively is, as it may be 
said of the Great Bedford Flat, he has the questionable 
merit of being connected with the Bedford family. He 
belongs to the people as Johnson^s friend Campbell 
belonged to the Church. "^ Campbell,^' said Johnson, 
''is a good man, a very good man. I fear he has not 
been inside of a church for many years, but he never 
passes one without taking his hat off. That shows, at 
least, that he has good principles. '■" Lord John omits 
no opportunity of professing proper attachment to the 
people, whilst the whole course of his political life makes 
that profession doubtful. He serves them in the same 
way as that in which Scrub serves the ladies in the farce 
when commissioned by them to obtain iuformaiion as 



308 Members who have lecome Peers. 

to the stranger they had seen at church. He tells them 
he has a whole packet of news. " In the first place,^' 
Bays he_, " I inquired who the gentleman was ? They 
told me he was a stranger. Secondly, I asked what the 
gentleman was ? They answered and said, that they 
never saw him before. Thirdly, I inquired what coun- 
tryman he was ? They replied, ^twas more than they 
knew. Fourthly, I demanded whence he came? Their 
answer was, they could not tell. And fifthly, I asked 
whither he went ? and they replied, they knew nothing 
of the matter.^'' To the people, thus clamorous to re- 
form. Lord John gives as much welcome intelligence 
as Scrub did to the ladies. He has a whole packet of 
reform and retrenchment, if they will but wait ; but it 
it is not meant for use. It is never ready when it is 
wanted. He is a Whig, a Reformer, a friend of the 
people, an advocate of progress. He does not deny but 
that further reforms might be made — ^he is very indig- 
nant at being suspected of finality ; yet somehow or 
other, it did happen that every attempt made in 
that direction met with the most unscrupulous op- 
position of Lord John and the party whom he repre- 
sented. He did not think much of INIr. Cobden^s 
plea for retrenchment, and arbitration instead of 
war. He had bat a poor opinion of the ballot, he 
scornfully eschewed household sufi'rage, and the five 
points he could not abide. In the Palmerston adminis- 
tration his presence in the Cabinet was said to be a gua- 
rantee for carrying a Reform Bill. As usual. Lord 



Lord John BusseJl. 309 

John is mucli too late. He would be a party to no 
reform when Hume and the rest were urging him to 
move with the times^ and till quite recently he was 
placidly ad^dsing the people, often duped and disap- 
pointed by promises of a Reform Bill, their wisest 
plan was to Rest and be Thankful. 

Again, through a long parliamentary life, Lord John 
has been little and spiteful, and troublesome in oppo- 
sition. In his diary, Tom Moore wrote of his lordship, 
that " he was mild and sensible^' on a particular occa- 
sion, but sometimes his lordship has been neither the 
one nor the other. Moore regretted that Lord John 
Russell " showed so little to advantage in society from 
his extreme taciturnity, and still more from his ap- 
parent coldness and indifference to what was said to 
him.^^ This coolness and indifference, combined with 
no small opinion of himself, has often led his lordship 
into conduct which has made him very unpopular. 
When in this state, and expelled from office, he has not 
had strength of mind sufficient to lead him calmly 
to wait till the nation has called him back to the 
helm of state, but he has tried all sorts of contemptible 
manoeuvres. Never can we forget the appropriation 
clause which he carried to unseat Sir Robert Peel, and 
then abandoned when in power. Lord John called 
" the repeal of the corn laws mischievous, absurd, 
impracticable, and unnecessary /' yet his Edinburgh 
letter in favour of their abolition was hastily written 
and published when he found that his great rival, Sir 



310 Members who have become Peers. 

Robert Peel, was about to take steps in tlie direction 
of Free Trade. In his opposition to the budget of Sir 
E/oberfc Peel, it is questionable Tvlietlier the force of 
meanness could further go. Then what a mischievous 
attempt, on his lordship^s part, to acquire popularity- 
was the Durham Letter, and how fatal the rebound. 
Lord John^s "^ spirited letter''' certainly led the nation 
to open its eyes. That a Minister who had long been 
suspected of designing to endow the Roman Catholic 
Church should have written such a letter, was very 
surprising ; but that after writing that letter he 
should have cooled down ; that after roaring like a 
lion he should have aggravated his voice till it was little 
better than a whisper, was more surprising still. The old 
adage of " much cry and little wooF'' was never more 
ludicrously realized. In the name of the prophet, ex- 
claimed his lordship, with pompous strut and voice, — 
In the name of the prophet — figs ! The contrast 
between his letter and his legislation — ^between his 
speech and his bill — was as wide as that between 
Philip drunk and Philip sober; or as that between 

" Sappho at her toilet's greasy task, 
With. Sappho fragrant at an evening mask." 

If Popery were what Lord John said in his speech 
it was — a curse in every country in which it exists ; 
and if legislation can grapple with it, — then the bill 
was delusive and a mockery. Lord John, in his 
speech, complained of synodical action. The bill left 
that untouched. The greatest condemnation of Lord 



Lord John Russell. 311 

Johu^s bill was Lord John^s speech. Disraeli could say 
nothing stronger against it than what his lordship him- 
self implied. The truth was, to gain a little transient 
popularity, or to draw off public attention from the 
growing cry for further Financial and Parliamentary 
Reform, the First Minister of the Crown stooped to a 
line of conduct of which the veriest demagogue might 
have been ashamed. An intense anti-Catholic feeling 
was aroused. From almost every county and town — 
from almost every sect and class — petitions went forth 
expressing burning indignation at the foolish aggres- 
sion of the Pope. To whatever an Englishman is in- 
different, he is not to the growth of the power which in 
time past lit up the fires of Smithfield, or the auto da 
fe's of Goa and Madrid, or which, even at the present 
day, condemns to the degradation of the gaol the lover 
of his country and his kind. Under the influence of 
that feeling, men steeped in everlasting infamy — such 
as Titus Gates, or Sacheverell, or Lord George Gordon 
— have strutted on the stage the heroes of an hour. A 
wise Minister would have paused ere that feeling was 
rashly excited. A wise Minister Avould have considered 
his power of controlling the storm ere he had bidden 
it ride forth. A wise Minister, before he i)ut himself 
in collision with a system, the influence of which 
exists in every land, would have kept for himself a 
way of coming out of the strife victorious. Lord John 
Russell signally failed in doing this. All that he did 
by his bill was to proclaim a weakness it had been easy 



312 Memhers who have become Peers. 

to conceal^ and to put in bolder relief the magnitude 
of Papal pretences and the littleness of Ministerial 
legislation. His letter was a sham. He but touched 
upon the surface of the evil, and that in a manner 
not difficult to evade. In all its intensity, the evil 
remained the same. " With our pleasant vices we make 
the whips with which we scourge ourselves.^^ That 
Ecclesiastical Titles Bill sealed Lord John^s career as 
Premier. To retain office he had to descend from that 
lofty position. Under the Aberdeen Administration he 
committed a similar mistake. A public system had 
broken down ; a magnificent army had wasted away. 
By many an English fireside was it told how in that 
winter there had been, far away, a tragedy done un- 
equalled in the worst days of official mismanagement, 
as criminal as any of the Walcheren and other forlorn 
efforts of the past. From one end of England to the 
other, wherever man met man, whether in the haunts 
of fashion or of business, whether at home or abroad, 
there were curses uttered, deep and loud, against the 
men responsible for these disasters. Parliament met ; 
it was known that the first thing required would be 
the appointment of the Sebastopol Committee. Of 
course that was a vote of censure on the existing ad- 
ministration ; but instead of calmly awaiting the vote, 
and endeavouring to defend himself and his colleagues. 
Lord John had the littleness to abandon his post, and 
to cast stones at the men with whom he had sat at the 
council board. Again, in his haste to appear before the 



Lord John BusscU. 313 

world, Le rushed to A^'icnna, there still further to lie 
duped and rendered ridieulous. That his lordship, as 
he grows older, does not grow wiser, is clear from his 
having had recourse to his old tactics up to the time 
of his leaving the Lower House. Reform was a matter 
of such vital importance that it could not be trusted 
in the hands of the Derby Cabinet ; only Lord John 
Russell could deal with such a delicate subject. Lord 
John moved his memorable resolutions. Lords Pal- 
merston and Russell forgot their ancient feuds and 
swore eternal friendship ; the liberal rank and file 
followed suit ; the Derby administration was rejected ; 
and as a practical result, reform was delayed till Lord 
Derby came into office again. 

It may be asked, is his lordship''s oratory of so 
fascinating a character as for a time to render the 
House of Commons blind to his many faults ? By no 
means. Look at him marching into the lobby — frigid, 
dwarfed^ and self-complacent. For such a man there 
can be no real enthusiasm on the part of those who 
know him. See him in the House — always equally 
cold and chilling, and civil to all around. Follow him 
to the platform and the hustings, he is the same re- 
pellant, unattractive Whig. But he has lived for the 
House of Commons, and the House is not ungrateful. 
To Lord John also is due the merit of having led the 
House efficiently in time past. In this respect his tact 
was only equalled by that of his great rival, Sir Robert 
Peel ; and in knowledge of forms and precedents by 



314 Members wJio have become Peers. 

many lie was considered the superior of that distin- 
guished man. There was really something grand in 
the aspect of the House under his leadership. It was 
a remarkable instance of the triumph of mind over 
matter. In a crowded House, at the close of a heated 
debate, you would see the smallest man in that great 
assembly advance to the table, and the noise of the 
House, and the murmur of many voices, was hushed 
and still ; the Opposition became attentive ; strangers 
would lean forward their heads ; peers and diplomatists 
would hearken. Seemingly careless and slovenly, the 
speech would be found to contain the right amount of 
liberalism to go down with the back benches ; parts 
would be elaborately polished, and sparkle with a quiet 
irony which the audience would not be slow to appre- 
ciate, nor reluctant to apply. 

Lord John has much to contend with. His out- 
ward form is frail and weakly ; his countenance 
sicklied over with the effects of solitary communing ; 
his figure shrunk below the ordinary dimensions of 
humanity ; his general air that of a meditative invalid. 
But within that feeble body is a spirit that knows not 
how to cower, an undaunted heart, an aspiring soul. 
His voice is weak, his accent drawling and provincial, 
his elocution broken, stammering, and uncertain, save 
in a few lucky moments, when his tongue seems un- 
loosed, when he becomes logical, eloquent, and terse. 
Then is his right hand convulsively clenched, his head 
proudjy thrown back, the outline of his face becomes 



Lord Jolin Russell. 315 

rigid, and his dwarfed figure expands as if he were a 
giant. Lord John is sometimes very happy, as when, 
in his letter to the electors of Stroud, he declared that 
'' the whisper of a faction shall not prevail agaiust the 
voice of a nation ;'' or when, in answer to Sir Francis 
Burdett, who charged him with the cant of patriotism, 
he told the baronet there was also such a thing as the 
recant of patriotism. One of Lord John^s most cele- 
brated speeches is that known as the Aladdin Lamp 
Speech, delivered by his lordship in 1819, and which 
Sir Robert Peel read to the House during the debate 
on the Reform Bill, in 1831. " Old Sarum," said 
Lord John, " existed when Somers and the great men 
of the revolution established our government. Rutland 
sent as many members as Yorkshire, when Hampden 
lost his life in defence of the constitution. Are we then, 
to conclude that Montesquieu praised a corrupt oli- 
garchy ? That Somers and the great men of that day 
expelled a king in order to set up a many-headed 
tyranny ? That Hampden sacrificed his life for the 
interests of a borough-mougcring faction? That the 
principles of the construction of this house are pure 
and worthy ? If we should change the principles 
of our constitution, we should commit the folly 
of the servant iu the story of Aladdin, who was de- 
ceived by the cry of '^ New lamps for old V Our 
lamp is covered with dust and rubbish, but it has 
a magical power ; it has raised up a smiling land, not 
bestrode with overgrown palaces, but covered with 



316 Members wJio have become Peers. 

modest dwellings^ every one of whicli contains a free- 
man enjoying equal protection with the proudest sub- 
ject in the land. It has called into life all the busy 
creations of commercial prosperity. Nor^ when men 
were to defend and illustrate their country^ have such 
men been deficient. When the fate of the nation de- 
pended on the line of policy which she should adopt, 
there were orators of the highest degree placing in 
the strongest light the arguments for peace or war. 
When we decided upon war, we had nerves to gain 
us laurels in the field and wield our thunders on the 
sea. When again we returned to peace — the questions 
of internal policy, of education of the poor, of criminal 
law, found men ready to devote the most splendid 
of abilities to the well-being of the community. And 
shall we change an instrument, that has produced 
effects so wonderful, for a burnished and tinsel toy 
of modern manufacture ? No ; small as the remaining 
treasure of the constitution is, I cannot consent to 
throw it into the wheel for the chance of obtaining 
a prize in the lottery of revolution."^ Let me add, 
that in debate Lord John is always a gentleman ; not 
merely are his sentences and phrases indicative of polish 
and refinement, but he is always courteous, never flip- 
pant, like Lord Palmerston, nor savage, like Mr. Disraeli. 
His lordship had a seat in the House of Commons 
as far back as 1813 ; but he shows few signs of age. 
He is one of England^s chiefs ; and by his lofty bear- 
ing, and the sparkle in his eye, you would fancy he 



Lord John Russell. 317 

is quite aware of the fact. Reaumur^ in liis book on 
" England," describes his lordship : " A little man, 
■with a refined and intelligent though not imposing air." 
A malicious Quarterly Reviewer, in a voluntary trans- 
lation of the same passage, rendered it, " A little, sharp, 
cunning-looking man, with nothing of an imposing- 
presence." I think both are Avrong. Lord John 
Russell looks the aristocrat as much as any man I have 
seen. Up in the Strangers^ Gallery, however, you lose 
this appearance, on account of the distance at which 
you are placed from his lordship. It is true he is seated 
on the Treasury Bench : but he sits with his chin 
buried in his bosom, his head buried in his hat, and all 
that you can really see, as he sits cross-legged, and with 
his arms across his breast, are his diminutive extremi- 
ties. See, he rises to address the House. Slowly he 
lifts off his hat, advances to the table, crosses his arms, 
and, in a brogue somewhat provincial, and not very 
musical, says " Mr. Speaker." All at once the Babel 
of conversation, the shuffling, coughing, laughing, and 
talking, is a little hushed. He commences; it is an 
important question he has to answer, or an important 
declaration he has to make, and you may hear a pin di'op. 
You hear a weak voice hammering and stammering at 
every four or five sentences, those sentences often most 
slovenly and inelegant in construction, and, at first, 
you wonder how a man, without figure, voice, delivery, 
or fluency, could become the leading orator of the 
House of Commons ; but^ as he goes on — as he cour- 



318 Members who have become Peers. 

teously replies to one, and administers a sly sarcasm 
to another — as his little frame dilates, and his eye 
sparkles — as he warms, and the House with him, you 
will feel that the little man has more in him than at 
first appeared. Read the speech next morning, and 
you will find how closely to the point it was — how 
exactly calculated to the occasion — how it suited the 
atmosphere of the House, and then you must remem- 
ber how cool and unruffled was the speaker, and what 
tact he displayed. In these latter respects Lord John 
has greatly shone, and has evinced a smartness of 
which you would not suspect him as you listen to his 
drawling tones, and witness his slovenly delivery. 

In one of his numerous works. Lord John Russell 
says that the House of Commons, while it admires a 
man of genius, always gives its confidence to a man of 
character. It is on his character that Lord John takes 
his stand. Character, as we all know, is one of the 
most delusive phrases in the English language; one 
man may steal a sheep, while another may not look 
over a wall. Half the scoundrels that are tried at the 
Old Bailey are, like Redpath, and Sir John Paul, and 
others, men of good character. A good character is the 
dernier ressort of a man who has little or nothing else 
to recommend him. And Lord John Russell certainly 
has made no little capital out of his character, and 
that of the great family to whose history he adds 
another very interesting page. Herein is Lord John 
RusselFs speciality. He takes his stand upon his cha- 



Lord John Russell. 319 

racter. He had a good character twenty or thirty years 
ago, and he reaps the benefit of it at this moment. " So 
long as your father sticks to that ugly wife of his, and 
goes regularly to church/^ said Erskine to the Prince 
of Wales, " he will always be popular ;" and Lord John 
has gained much of his popularity in a similar way. 
What a man he is for public meetings ! How familiar 
are Exeter Hall, and the Freemasons' Tavern, and the 
City of London Tavern, with his name. How amusing 
is that account Mrs. Stowe gives of her visit to his 
lordship at Pembroke Lodge. " We were received,^' 
she writes, " in the drawing-room by the young ladies. 
Two charming little boys came in, and a few moments 
after their father. Lord John. I had been much pleased 
with finding on the centre table a beautiful edition of 
the revered friend of my childhood. Dr. Watts^s Songs, 
finely illustrated. I remarked to Lord John that it 
was the face of an old friend. He said it was presented 
to his little boys by their godfather. Sir George Grey. 
And when, taking one of these little boys on his knee, 
he asked him if he could repeat me one of his hymns, 
the whole thing seemed so New England-like that I 
began to feel myself quite at home.''' 

" Private vices,'' says Mandcvillc, " are frequently 
public benefits." Is not the converse true, and are not 
private virtues public mischiefs ? " George the Third's 
constancy to his wife and his shoulder of mutton," 
wrote Albany Fonblanque, in the palmy days of tlic 
Examiner y ''his taste for regularity and simplicity, 



330 Members who have become Peers. 

enabled him to plunge us into wasting^ unjust^ and un- 
necessary wars. Had lie kept various concubines^ and 
dined oiF French dishes at nine o^ clock, the people 
would have had a lively perception of the depravity 
of his politics,, and an intimate persuasion of their 
Avrongs/^ 

I confess that, to myself, Lord John Russell seems 
more an historical than a real flesh and blood at this 
day existing man. His was a name dear to the nation, 
and always received with delight, when the men and 
women of to-day played with dolls and marbles, and 
feasted on indigestible pastry. I remember well the 
almost idolatrous veneration with which he was wor- 
shipped by reformers, and that large and influential 
class, the Protestant Dissenters, whose unrighteous 
shackles, by means of the abolition of the Test and 
(corporation Acts, he had been the means of removing. 
In that era. Lord John was deemed the champion of 
what was much talked of then, civil and religious 
liberty all the world over. 

" We have changed (for worse or better P) 
Since the time of Charlemagne." 

And I have lived to see the House of Commons grow 
restive under his leadership, his followers diminished, 
and the country, if not weary of, at any rate very in- 
diff'erent to the man. I fear gratitude can never be a 
permanent state of the mind, unless, as in O^Conneirs 
acceptation of the term, a sense of thankfulness for 
favours to come ; or rather, that the law of humanity 



Lord JoJui Bussell. 321 

is, that when a man has doue his work and taken his 
wages, he should trouble us no more. It is not the 
indiAddual that makes revolutions. The age makes 
them, and merely honours an individual as an agent. 
We should have had Parliamentary Reform had Lord 
John Russell never lived ; and the Test and Corpora- 
tion Acts, and the Slave Trade, would have been swept 
away in a similar manner. These changes are made 
when the time for them has arrived. The statesman 
who carries them is in reality carried by them. He is 
merely the servant of the public, and translates into 
legislative enactment the wants, and wishes, and con- 
victions of the age. Had Lord John Russell realized 
this truth, he would never have lost himself by talk- 
ing of finality, as if in this world of eternal change 
finality could be predicated of any one thing. Mors 
janua vita, death is the gate to life, is true in politics ; 
reform is a never-ending process. The old Whig view 
is different. It is the man who covers the land with 
plenty — who removes evil — who admits the profanum 
vulgus to a limited suffrage, and who reaps his reward 
in the blessings of ages yet to come. But to any man 
who looks at the core of things, Avho seeks to know 
the causes of what may seem revolutionary changes, 
and who remembers the influence of an oligarchy, it is 
clear that if Lord John had never lived, some other 
scion of the noble house of Bedford would have done 
that which he has done, and if of equal industry and 
devotion to public lifc^ would have formed as material 

Y 



322 Members wJio have become Peers. 

a part of a Liberal cabinet. The conclusion, if not 
flattering to his lordship, is very much so to his lord- 
ship^s order, and especially to his family, indicating, as 
it does, the rigidity and fixedness of what is called a 
popular system of government. 
Tennyson makes Ulysses say, 

" Old age liatli yet his honour and his toil." 

Similar language might be put into the mouth of Lord 
John Eussell. He is full of what may be termed 
House of Commons knowledge. In his youth he 
measured with Fox, and inherited the traditions of 
the Rockingham Whigs. If his lordship has been 
ambitious, his has been no mean or contemptible 
ambition. His aspirations have all been of an ancient 
and heroic mould. He carries us back to the great 
days of Parliamentary eloquence. His principles were 
formed, and his habits acquired, and his style 
fashioned, on principles and persons now no longer 
known. He has still around him some of the lustre 
acquired by contact with the immortals. Mournfully 
he may exclaim, as he reviews his diminished prestige 
and fading power, 

" Much have I seen and known ; cities of men, 
And manners, climates, councils, governments, 
Myself not least, but honoured of them all, 
And drunk delight of battle with my peers, 
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy." 

In the decline of his lordship^s reputation there is 



Lord JoJi n Ru^selL 323 

reason for national regret. When he trips and falls, 
the feeling created is one of sorrow and vexation. 
Lord Sydenham declared that his lordship was " the 
noblest man he had ever the good fortune to know •'' 
and though the old hosts he led to \detory, the states- 
men who were proud to call themselves his followers — 
the public speakers and active politicians in our chief 
towns and cities, who stood by his side on many a plat- 
form, are gone never to return, we wistfully gaze still 
on the pluck and ambition and varied fortunes of his 
lordship. The nation cannot but sympathize in his 
lordship's decline and fall. There was a time when 
manners and fashions were more coui'tly and dignified 
than at present ; when gentlemen wore wigs and 
knee-breeches ; when ladies did not dance the polka ; 
when fathers and sons addressed each other in the most 
distressingly respectful language. Lord John, in poli- 
tical life, retains something of this grand air, which 
always tells, just as what the actors say about a man 
who lays hands on a woman is a brute, is approved by 
the gods, who return home and whop their wives with 
a double gusto after cheering so virtuous a sentiment. 
In his character of a Roman Senator Lord John is al- 
ways successful. The strangers in the Gallery are 
always delighted, and no wonder, for then the little 
figure draws itself up to its full height ; the eye 
glistens ; the husky voice becomes animated and tre- 
mulous with eniotion ; his lordship looks boldly round 
on admiring back benches, defiantly to the wcll-lillcd 

y2 



824 Memhers who have become Peers. 

ranks of Opposition in front, and yon would swear that 
he was at least six feet high. 

SIR BULWER LYTTON."'^ 

What wonders can be wrought by time, and patience, 
and energy ! Like faith, they can remove mountains. 
In what walk of life has not Sir Edward Bulwer 
Lytton succeeded ? who writes better novels ? who 
has published more popular poems? who has penned 
smarter essays, or delivered more eloquent speeches ? 
Without being a genius, by steady industry he has 
outstripped genius itself. It is true his position has 
been very favourable to success. He has never been 
a poor author. He has always been able to dine his 
critics. From the first he has mixed in what is called 
good society, and such as he never toil for fame in 
vain. There are some people who maintain that 
virtue is always rewarded, even in this life. Be that 
as it may, a gentleman of talent, and learning, and 
wealth can never fail as politician or writer. The 
late Mr. Henry Drummond, who abused everybody 
and everything, whose speeches always pointed in one 
direction while his votes went in another, was a suc- 
cess as wit and statesman, because he was a partner 
in the banking-house in Charing-cross. For the same 
reason Mr. Sam Rogers got the public to buy so many 
editions of his " Pleasures of Memory ,^^ For the 

* Eaised to the j)eerage aa Lord Lytton in 1866. 



Sir Bulwer Lofton. 325 

same reason, going back still further, were the verses 
of the Hon. AVilliam Robert Spencer — now rescued 
from oblivion merely by his being pilloried in the re- 
jected addresses — in demand. We may go back still 
further. Swift^s song, by a person of quality, indicates 
how, even in the Augustan age, the position of the 
writer was a very important consideration. But the 
subject of this sketch has done more tiian merely 
achieve the success always achieved by his class. His 
pluck, and perseverance, and brilliant qualities would 
have made him a marked man had he been born in a 
garret, in a kitchen bred. We like to sympathize 
with success, especially when that success is won 
by one of the " upper ten thousand." A good man 
struggling with adversity may be a sight dear to the 
gods, but certainly not to the British public. That 
august body is apt to vote such a one a bore, and in- 
finitely prefers the contemplation of a good man re- 
siding on his own unencumbered estate, and well en- 
dowed with this world^s goods. 

It is the night of a great debate. The men out of 
office are trying to drive out the men who are in ; and 
everything betokens that a crisis is at hand. The 
whippers-in in the lobby are counting up their men ; 
the telegraph l)oys are hard at work ; the Irish patriots 
have hafl things made pleasant, and popular M.P.^s 
are quietly lieing sold ; a few fierce patriots from 
Finsbury or Marylebone arc gazing wildly at the gas 
and the door-kee^jcrs, while treachery is being done 



326 Members who have become Peers. 

before their very eyes. Tlie strangers in the Gallery 
are vastly excited, and wonder how it is the leading 
characters should look as weary as actors on any other 
stage. It is early yet^ and the House is very full. 
The first speech of the adjourned debate has scarce 
commenced when a tall^ ghostly figure glides on to 
the Opposition bench^ and places himself by the side 
of Mr. Disraeh — nearest to the Strangers' Gallery. 
His eye glistens like that of the ancient mariner_, and 
his hand is almost as skinny. All the flesh on his face 
seems to have run into hair; and his aquiline nose is 
as much a feature as was that of the Duke, or as is 
that of my Lord Brougham. He stoops forward, 
places his elbow on his side, makes an ear-trumpet of 
his hand, and turns his face to the speaker for the 
time being, as if unwilling to lose a single word. 
Perhaps he maj take a note or two ; rejoice, if he 
does, for that is a sure sign that he will speak next; 
and, if he does, you will have, indeed, a treat. As a 
dramatist, the man before you has won fitting fame; 
as a novelist, the world is familiar with his name. 
The voice of woman, quivering with emotion, has 
sung his choicest songs. The hard man of the world, 
the scholar in his cloister, the idler in Belgravian draw- 
ing-rooms, have alike to be gratefal to him for many 
hours of real joy; and therefore is it that not in vain 
does the author of " The Caxtons," and " My Novel,'' 
and " The Pilgrim of the Rhine," rise to catch the 
Speaker's eye. Sir Bulwer Lytton does not often 



Sir Buhoer Lijtton. 327 

address the House ; when he does, his speeches arc 
carefully prepared^ and have the questionable reputa- 
tion of reading well. He is artificial throughout. 
His voice is most studiously modulated; his action, 
which is exuberant, is the same ; his moustache, 
and dress, and deportment have an equally elabo- 
rate air. Though a wealthy baronet and a lead- 
ing statesman, there is something of the author of 
" Pelham" hangs about him ; yet all that art and 
knowledge can do for him has been done. If reciting 
an essay were debating, Sir Bulwer Lytton would 
achieve no mean place in the annals of parliamentary 
eloquence; but he lacks the true secret of oratorical 
success — the genius for speaking, which nothiug can 
buy — which no art can give, no industry secure — for 
the absence of which nothing can compensate — and 
the presence of which makes low-born, half-educated 
men principalities and powers. You see at once that 
the orator is on stilts ; but he has a name, his compo- 
sition is perfect, and he is, besides, immensely rich ; so 
cheer after cheer greets him as he delivers, one after 
another, his well-prepared thrusts. Vivian Gray tells 
us — " In this country, to achieve distinction, a man 
must have a genius, or a million, or blood.^^ Sir 
Bulwer is favoured by the gods, and has all three, and 
now the tall and once handsome baronet would win 
yet another triumph — he would be a statesman as 
well as a novelist — he would act a part in history as 
well as imagine one — he would live in Downing-strcct 
as well as in Paternoster-row. 



328 Memhers who have become Peers. 

Sir Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer Lytton 
was born at Hey don Hall, Norfolk, in 1805, and was 
educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he 
gained the Chancellory's prize medal for the best Eng- 
lish poem. He sat for St. Ives in 1831, and for Lin- 
coln from 1832 to 1841, and was then supposed to be 
an advanced Liberal, and eager for the repeal of the 
taxes on knowledge, on which question he founded an 
annual motion, and which, on one occasion, it is sup- 
posed he would have carried, as there was a large 
majority in his favour, but Mr. Spring Rice appealed 
to him, and the motion was consequently withdrawn. At 
that time also he was in favour of the ballot, but now 
a large landowner, and seeing its utter inefficacy in 
France and America, he can no longer defend that 
theory. Altogether, he has very much altered his 
opinions, in common, I believe, with the rest of the 
British public, since he first started in life as a public 
man, and edited that respectable but long-defunct pub- 
lication the Monthly Chronicle. He now concurs with 
the general policy espoused by Lord Derby — would 
readjust the income-tax and mitigate the duty on malt 
and tea. Yet the Whigs made Sir Bulwer a baronet. 
Sir Bulwer^s maiden speech was by no means over- 
effective ; but Sir Bulwer is a man not easily daunted, 
and he tried again. He obtained a committee to in- 
quire into the laws affecting the drama, and intro- 
duced and carried a bill to grant stage copyrights to 
written dramas. One of his best speeches was that 



Sir Bulwer Lytfon. 329 

for the immediate emancipation of the West Indian 
slaves. CCounell described it as one of the most 
vigorons efforts of impassioned reasoning he had ever 
heard in that House, and the speech was printed at 
the request and expense of the delegates from the 
societies in favour of immediate emancipation. Some 
of his political pamphlets, especially one called the 
"■ Crisis/' have been very effective. On Lord Mel- 
bourne's resumption of the reins of power, it led to the 
offer of a place as one of the Loi'ds of the Admiralty, 
an offer which Sir Bulwer very wisely declined. Of 
the " Letters to John Bull " I can only add that they 
plead for protection, and that the cause was already 
lost ere the baronet ventured into the field. On this 
question, however, he was consistent, as, so early as 
1839, we find him resisting the repeal of the Corn 
Laws ; and when he returned to public life, the old 
bonds of party had been in some degree broken up. He 
pronounced himself in favour of a fair trial to Lord 
Derby's Government, and shortly after his return to 
Parliament, delivered his sentiments to this effect in a 
speech applauded by Disraeli as one of the most mas- 
terly ever given to the House. He spoke again once 
in the session of 1853, upon his own motion against 
the enactment of the income-tax on its former footing ; 
and when the Aberdeen Administration drifted into 
,var, and broke down beneath the unaccustomed load, 
more than once was the voice of the baronet heard 
uttering what all England thought and felt. In 1858 



330 Members who have become Peers. 

the member for Hertfordshire — for in 1852 Sir 
Bulwer achieved that honour — became Secretary for 
the Colonies, and retained that office till the Derby- 
administration fell, owing to the laudable desire of 
Lords Palmerston and Russell to present the people 
of England with a full and efficient measure of Par- 
liamentary Reform. Altogether the literary baronet 
is a great catch for the county party ; with an intel- 
lect equal to that of Disraeli, and a name how much 
more English and racy of the soil ! 

As an orator, he carries us back to old times. The 
last time I heard Sir Bulwer Lytton reminded me of 
the last time I heard Macaulay. In more senses than 
one they resembled each other. They both laboured 
under physical disadvantages; they were both pre- 
pared speakers rather than debaters ; and they both 
sustained similar relations to their party. It is the 
fashion of the baronet — as it was of the peer — to speak 
early in the evening; and what a rush was there to 
hear them ! how the House filled ! how the Gallery 
opposite the Speaker filled ! how keen was the enjoy- 
ment of the audience, and how sincere and enthusiastic 
the applause ! The occasion to which I more particu- 
larly allude was the adjourned debate on the second 
reading of the Reform Bill. Sir Bulwer Lytton spoke 
for nearly two hours, and certainly never did the hon. 
baronet make a more effective speech. Unfortunately 
he is very deaf, and as he cannot tell when he is 
audible or not, at times he elevates his voice — which is 



Sir Bulwer Lytton, 331 

very clear and shrill — and at times he drops it so much 
as to be utterly inaudible ; and then he has such vehe- 
ment and forcible gesticulation, as frequently to excite 
the apprehension quite as much as the admiration of the 
hearer. His spare, wiry, weird appearance ; his thin 
outstretched arms ; his figure, one moment thrown 
back to the eminent danger of the spine, and anon 
reaching as far as possible forward, in an opposite 
direction, seems scarcely English, and one feels as if 
witnessing the feats of some foreign professor of leger- 
demain, who has made the round of the principal 
Courts of Europe, and has condescended, 'for pecuniary 
reasons, to abide awhile in the more aristocratic regions 
of the metropolis. But this feeling soon vanishes as 
the accomplished rhetorician proceeds to invest even 
the commonplaces of party with an original and 
classic air. One great merit Sir Bulwer Lytton has, 
and that is, he is never dull. As a rule, M'.P.'s are 
dreadfully dull. Dulness — if I may judge by what I 
hear and see every day, especially in the Church and 
in the Senate-house — is much appreciated by the 
English public. We seem quietly to assume that a 
dull man is never either a rogue or a fool. In vain 
we take the taxes off knowledge, and teach people to 
read and write : 

" Still her old empire to restore she tries, 
For, boru a goddess, Dulness never dies." 

One word as to Sir Bulwer Lytton^s Parliamentary 
position. The House of Commons every day becomes 



332 Members who have become Peers. 

a more plebeian assembly. One cannot be surpriseii 
at this;, for its saving virtue is^ that it is the People^s 
House; and of course every day we^re told that it is 
less and less an assembly of orators. This is a very old 
complaint ; Wilberforce made it in 1809_, when Canning 
and Brougham were in the House. As soon as the 
Reformed Parliament met, all the rejected M.P.^s and 
anti- Reformers said the same. The truth is, the 
House meets for business, and the leaders and most 
successful men talk about business, and M.P.-'s, no 
matter how distinguished they may be for their talents, 
who forget this and seek to shine by mere eloquence, 
must assuredly fail. Now, Sir Bulwer Lytton be- 
longs to the old school, and does the oratorical on 
the grand scale, while Disraeli and Lord Palmerston 
speak for power, and are indifferent as to display. 
Sir Bulwer seems to consider himself merely " as a 
living apparition, sent to be a moment^s ornament ;" 
and hence it is that he has never taken first rank in 
an assembly which is jealous as a mistress of a divided 




CHAPTER IX. 

DECEASED MEMBEES. 

LORD PALMERSTON. 

HIS is a great^ free, self-governed country. 
I must believe it, for I read it in tlie news- 
papers every day. The aristocracy tell us 
this when they condescend to adorn our public din- 
ners ; and popular lecturers at Mechanics'* Institutions 
and Athenaeums repeat it. Our Constitution is the 
gi'owth of ages, and has attained a perfection of which 
Hobbes despaired and of which Locke never dreamt. 
It is the envy of surrounding nations, says Mr. Hors- 
man in our day, — ^just as George III. did in his — 
when Pitt and an unreformed Parliament added 
^6200,000,000 to the national debt. The franchise, 
we are told, is a trust ; that trust is placed in the 
most trustworthy hands. (Cato was the original ten- 
pound householder.) Our elections are the envy of 
surrounding nations. There is at them a studious 
abstinence from beer ; no one is solicited for a vote. 
The great manufacturer, or railway contractor, or the 
neighbouring peer, always retire to the Continent 



334 Deceased Members. 

when an election takes place, in order that the honest 
voter may act in accordance with the dictates of his 
conscience. The religious feel that it is a solemn 
event, and sermons appropriate to the occasion are 
preached in chapel and church alike. The ablest men 
of the community, irrespective of their wealth or want 
of it, are selected as candidates. On the day of nomi- 
nation, in the plain garb of citizens — without music 
or flags, or demonstrations of party feeling — they 
appear upon the hustings. Their speeches, in un- 
adorned but plain language, comment upon the men 
and movements of the day. They declare the princi- 
ples upon which they act, and upon which they deem 
the Government of Great Britain and its imperial 
dependencies should be carried on. These speeches, 
with the exception of a few immaculate boroughs, 
such as Yarmouth and Totnes, or Gloucester and 
Wakefield, or Berwick-upon-Tweed, are listened to by 
an audience fresh from the perusal of Bacon, Bentham, 
and Mill. A show of hands then takes place. The 
best man has invariably the majority, the others imme- 
diately retire, and the constituents, satisfied that they 
have done their duty, return home ; the representative, 
in his turn, becomes a constituent in another assembly, 
where he meets some six hundred similarly-minded 
gentlemen. They select from themselves, in order to 
form a cabinet, the ablest and wisest. These invari- 
ably are peers, or sons of peers. They, again, select 
the ablest and wisest as their head. He was, till the 



Lord Palmersfon. 335 

Crimean war tarnished, and the Schleswig-Holstein war 
destroyed our European reputation, the first man in 
the universe, and remotest regions learned to bless his 
name. Happily, in our day the system has arrived at 
a blessed fruition, and we have as Premier the Right 
Honourable Viscount Palmerston, G.C.B., a veteran 
official long before the present generation bewailed or 
rejoiced in long clothes. 

So much for theory, now for actual fact. Is it not 
singular that statesmanship as a rule is the only thing 
monopolized in this country by a class, and that class 
one which has invariably broken down when it has 
come into contact with men without grandfathers ? 
From the days of the Huntingdon brewer — not for- 
getting him who was emphatically " the Great Com- 
moner '^ — to those of Gladstone and Disraeli, our chief 
orators and statesmen have sprung from the middle 
ranks. If Fox belonged to the aristocracy, he confessed 
that he owed his noblest aspirations to Burke, the 
latter himself one of the wisest of men, yet who never 
was admitted a member of the Cabinet, whose chiefs 
he honoured by his service. If England^s rulers ac- 
cepted the services of Canning, they could prey upon 
his genius and prematurely exhaust his life. We saw 
the Earl of Derby honoured with the Garter on his re- 
tirement from the Premiership in 1859, while the man 
without whom his party could not have remained a 
day in office retired to Hughenden Manor undccorated 
and without reward. There may be great advantages 



336 Deceased Mem h ers. 

attending this state of things^ but an evident disad- 
vantage isj that this system compels us to accept a 
kind of Hobson^s choice. HencC;, when Lord John 
Eussell is sent for, and confesses that he cannot carry 
on the Queen^s Government^ and Lord Derby has 
confessed the same — if Lord Palmerston does not 
condescend to be our saviour, we are plunged into 
the horrors of a parliamentary dead-lock. This was the 
reason of Palmerston^s premiership. He was Premier 
just as men are villains by necessity and fools by a 
divine thrusting on. We read in Luther's " Table Talk/^ 
" Maximilian one day burst into a great laugh. On 
being asked the cause, ' Truly/ he said, ' I laughed to 
think that God should have trusted the spiritual go- 
vernment of the world to a drunken priest like Pope 
Julius, and the government of the empire to a chamois- 
hunter like me,' " We have it in evidence that an idea 
of this kind used to flash through Lord Althorp's 
honest brain. In his retirement at Broadlands, Lord 
Palmerston may indulge in a similar laugh. If we may 
judge from a public life of unusual extent, the last thing 
he aspired to was the Premiership. It was offered him, 
and he could not well refuse it. No man has less gone 
out of his way to attract or retain the admiration of 
the people than Lord Palmerston. When he upset 
Lord John Russell — and, in the language of the turf, 
began to make a good running — the novelty of the 
idea was quite refreshing. Palmerston Premier ! the 
thought was absurd. Who were his followers ? who 



Lord T aimer don. 337 

■would marcli tlirough Coventry with such a ragged 
regiment ? What ability, save that of consistently 
sticking to office, had he ever shown ? The clever men 
of a past age — Wilberforce, Plumer Ward, Dean Mil- 
ner. Canning, and others — it is true, always spoke and 
wrote of Palmerston as a man of great promise. In 
the House of Commons, the general opinion was that 
Palmerston was a man possibly to be laughed at for 
his juvenile airs, but certainly not to be despised ; but 
the outside multitude — " the people, the only source 
of political power '' — had no other idea of Palmerston 
than that he was always in office, that he was one of 
the best horsemen in Europe, and that he bore a sou- 
briquet supposed to indicate an amorous temperament 
and personal charms. Even writing so recently as 
1837, Mr. James Grant, in his "Random Recollections," 
could say, " Of Lord Palmerston, Foreign Secretary 
and Member for Tiverton, I have but little to say. 
The situation he fills in the Cabinet gives him a certain 
degree of prominence in the eyes of the country, which 
he certainly does not possess in Parliament. His 
talents are by no means of a high order. Assuredly 
they would never, by their own natural energy, have 
raised him to a distinguished j)osition in the councils 
of his Sovereign, in which a variety of accidental cir- 
cumstances have placed him. He is an indifl'crcut 
speaker." In 1839, another critic speaks of him as 
too aristocratical for the present day. This monstrous 
criticism was accepted at the time as honest and fuir. 



338 Deceased Members. 

How little can writers know of those of whom they write ! 
Since 1837^ Palmerston^s career has been a continued 
triumph : he put on the armour just as other men are 
putting it off. As a sexagenarian he descended into 
the political arena_, and exhibited all the ardour and 
vivacity of a youth. Men were first astonished,, then 
enraptured. All England swore by Lord Palmerston. 
Even the professors of the refined science of cookery 
— the disciples of Ude^ Careme, Soyer — caught the 
enthusiasm, and a Palmerston sauce became en vogue. 
In the four quarters of the globe the name of Palmer- 
ston was a tower of strength. There was rejoicing at 
Vienna when Palmerston fell in 185 1 . In the troubled 
years of 1848-9 a German popular couplet intimated 
that if the devil had a son^ that favoured mortal was 
our facetious Premier. " ^uda Palmerston seechas" 
(Hither Palmerston^ forthwith !) we are told, was during 
the Crimean war the cry with Avhich the Cossack of 
the Ukraine stilled his steed when restive, or urged it 
on when weary. Nay, more, at dinners at Damascus 
Mr. Disraeli makes an Eastern emir pettishly exclaim, 
" I cannot endure this eternal chatter about Palmerston: 
are there no other statesmen in the world besides Pal- 
merston T' Even on the other side the Atlantic his 
influence is felt. I read in an American paper that the 
truly culpable act of Brown and his deluded followers 
at Harper's Ferry was all owing to Lord Palmerston. 
Well, all this abuse is a confession of Palmerston^'s 
power, and that is a compliment to the English nation. 



Lord Pahuersfon. 339 

for the Palmcrston policy in the eyes of the world 
represents English policy, and we love the man who 
makes all the world talk of what England will do and 
dare. But in the man himself there is something else 
which creates and maintains his populai'ity. In the 
first place, nature has been bountiful to his lordship, 
and has given him length of days ; this is a greater 
advantage in statesmanship than at first sight it ap- 
pears. A man many years engaged in political afiairs 
learns much — gets an insight into men and parties — 
quotes precedents and becomes an authority. As he 
sees his contemporaries and rivals one by one snatched 
away by death, there is a clearer stage for himself. 
Promotion often in politics goes by seniority. We all 
spoke of the late Marquis of Lansdowne, for instance, 
as a political Nestor, yet, if we look back to his younger 
days, when he first started in public life, we do not 
find that he made a very great impression ; then, 
again, in many of the fierce party fights of the last 
generation. Lord Palmcrston was called on to take 
but a secondary part, his department having been 
more foreign than home politics. He has thus rarely 
come into collision with the passions and preju- 
dices of any powerful class ; thus it is that he has had, 
more than once, we believe, in ministerial crises, ad- 
vances made to him by the leaders of the Conservative 
party ; and thus it is that he often receives a large 
share of Conservative support. Then, again, there is 
a thoroughness in his way of doing business, winch we 

z2 



340 Deceased Members. 

all like. Let him be Home Secretary, let Mm be 
Foreign Minister, let bim be Premier, be does erery- 
tbing tborougbly and to tbe best of his power. " When 
Lord Grenville was in tbe beigbt of bis power/' writes 
Horace Walpole, " I one day said to bim, ' My lord, 
as you are going to tbe king, do ask bim to make 
poor Clive one of tbe council.' He replied, ' Wbat is 
it to me wbo is a judge or wbo a bisbop ? It is my 
business to make kings and emperors, and to maintain 
tbe balance of power in Europe.' " Now, Lord Pal- 
merston would never bave made sucb a silly answer. 
Wben be is at work we soon find out. Wbetber for 
work or play, no man can beat bis lordsbip. Is tbe 
House of Commons determined to waste its time in 
idle debates, to abandon its privileges, to promise 
everj^tbing out-of-doors and do nothing in-doors — Lord 
Palmerston fools them to their heart's content. And 
then there is a bonhommie about bis lordsbip which is 
popular ; a good-tempered, jolly man can never be un- 
popular. This was tbe secret of Lord North's success, 
and of that of a still greater man before bim. Sir 
Robert Walpole. It must be confessed my lord has 
something to laugh at. What must he think of 
popular M.P.'s wbo charge him with treason, and yet 
dare not vote against him for fear of damaging tbe 
shop ? 

It cannot be that such a one is tbe nonentity so 
flippantly portrayed by Mr. Grant; the captain of 
shams described by Mr. Bright ; or the arch-traitor 



Lord PaJmersfon. 341 

sold to Russia, as Mr. Urquhart will be happy to 
tell you any day. Years ago, tlie writer, meeting 
with one of the numerous agitators with which the 
metropolis abounds, requested the enthusiast referred 
to to explain his movements. " Oh," said he, " we 
are going to impeach Palmerston V We suggested 
the desirability of losing no time if such a course were 
resolved on. " Oh \" said our informant, " Palmerston 
will live ten years longer : Russia calculates that he 
will do so too." Palmerston lived on, but who was 
guilty of the folly of talking of impeaching him ? 

Voltaire says, men succeed less by their talents than 
their character. As an instance, he compares Mazarin 
and De Retz. In quoting a passage in a letter to 
the Bishop of LlandafF, the late Lord Dudley said, 
'' Walpole and Bolingbroke make a similar pair in tlie 
next century. Castlereagh and Canning are remark- 
able examples of the truth of the maxim which our 
days have furnished." The list might have been ex- 
tended so as to embrace the career of Lord Palmerston. 
Undoubtedly the noble lord''s talents are of a high 
order. " We are all proud of him \" said Sir Robert 
Peel, and the words were caught up and re-echoed all 
over the land ; but it is the character he has acquired 
that has placed him where he is. It would be the 
height of absurdity to deny Lord Palmerston the posses- 
sion of great talent. He has made brilliant speeches ; 
his pro-Catholic orations were republished ; and the 
way iu which he put down Julian Harney at Tivcr- 



342 Deceased Members, 

ton tickled every midriff in Great Britain. His fiye- 
liours^ speecli in vindication of himself in the House 
of Commons was a masterpiece. A Conservative 
member^ walking home that night, said to a literary- 
member of Parliament^ "■ I have heard Canning, and 
Plunket, and Brougham in their best days, and I 
never heard anything to beat that speech.^^ Yet our 
Premier has never scaled the heights of oratory ; has 
never attained to the utterance of new and brilliant 
truths ; genius has never thrown around him her 
robe of dazzling light ; he has been a dexterous debater, 
skilful at fence, nothing more. Palmerston is but a 
man of the time, while Pitt and Fox, Burke and Can- 
ning, were men for all times. He even ranks below Sir 
Robert Peel, whose speeches are still quoted, and occa- 
sionally read. He leaves on you the impression that 
he is adroit ; that he is liberal in profession where 
Austria and Italy are concerned; that he is grand 
at bullying little states ; and that it is true of him 
what the first Napoleon said of Providence, that it was 
always on the side that had the strongest legions. 
Glance at his lordship^s administrative career, and this 
is manifest. Toryism was popular, and Palmerston 
began life as a Tory; Reform was popular, and he 
turned Reformer; war with Russia was popular in 
1855, and he became a furious war-minister. In some 
quarters, more recently, people were talking of a further 
parliamentary reform, and an extension of the suffrage, 
and Lord Palmerston, who resigned office rather thai* 



Lord JPahnerston. 343 

accede to anything of the kind, condescended to intro- 
duce a comprehensive and satisfactory measure of re- 
form, which comprehensive and satisfactory measure 
was withdrawn quite as readily as it was introduced. 
This readiness to swim with the stream is a great 
thing in a statesman. Indeed, in spite of what men 
may say to the contrary, it is a virtue, if the stream 
flows in a right direction. But this is not the sole 
secret of the Premieres jjopularity. There is another 
and more potent cause. An anecdote will best illus- 
trate our meaning. 

Once upon a time two gentlemen went to dine at a 
noble mansion ; on their departui'e, according to the 
fashion of the age, the servants were ranged in the 
hall, waiting with extended palm the expected honora- 
rium. The guest who first departed was seen to pro- 
duce a smile on every countenance as he passed. His 
friend interrogated him as to the cause, " I gave them 
nothing,^^ was the reply. " I merely tickled their 
hands.^' In a precisely similar manner has Palmer- 
ston tickled Englishmen. Undeniably, John Bull is 
very vain— not of himself, like a Frenchman, but of 
his nation. The Chinese slave, writing to the Lord of 
the Sun and the Brother of the Moon of the encounter 
at Peiho, says, " The barbarians attacked us with 
their usual insolence and audacity." We have a simi- 
lar way of speaking of foreigners. " It is a grand 
country this," exclaims the enthusiastic but grum- 
bling Briton, while he abuses its laws, its customs, its 



344 Deceased Members. 

institutions,, and its climate. Our aged Premier has 
spent nearly half a century in repeating this cry for 
the edification of foreign courts. England has been 
the model which he has asked France^, Spain, Portu- 
galj Austria, Russia, to say nothing of countless smaller 
principalities and powers — no matter the difference of 
religion, of custom, and of race — to imitate and admire. 
If, occasionally, the parties thus addressed have shown 
a little irritation ; if, occasionally, an indiscreet Italian, 
or Polish, or Hungarian patriot, has in consequence 
appealed to the sword, believing that England's arm 
will uphold him in his application of English princi- 
ples ; the fault, of course, is not the noble Viscount's, 
and the English nation hugs itself into the belief, that 
the dislike and suspicion of foreign courts and peoples 
(for the singularity of the Palmerston, or rather the 
English foreign policy, is, that whilst it is too demo- 
cratic for foreign courts, it is too aristocratic for foreign 
peoples) is the measure of their respect and fear. 
Hence the national enthusiasm for Palmerston has 
placed him on the very topmost pinnacle. Abroad the 
cry has been, " Palmerston and Constitutionalism \" 
at home, " Palmerston and the Vindication of the Na- 
tional Honour \" John Bull, even now, when an 
adventurer and the son of an adventurer, with an 
audacity almost sublime, has climbed up the steep 
ascent of empire, and with his armed legions bids all 
Europe tremble, flatters himself that England sustains 
to the modern, the relation Rome sustained to the an- 



Lord T aimer st on. 345 

cient world. Under the broad sun of heaven he sees 
no more exalted personage than himself; he insists 
upon his rights in the remotest corner of the globe : in 
the presence of the Pope, whom he deems little better 
than one of the wicked, under the shadow of the gigan- 
tic despot who holds France in his mailed hand, before 
Austrian Kaiser, Russian Czar, Yankee backwoodsman, 
or astonished citizen of Timbuctoo, he exclaims, "Civis 
Komanus sum !" In his own opinion, it is his proud 
prerogative wherever he wanders to break all laws, to 
violate all customs, to pour contempt on all prejudices, 
and to run all risks. Now, in such circumstances, 
Palmerston always backs his countrymen, even when, 
like Sir John Bowring, they rush wildly into war ; 
and this mischievous John Bullism we all appreciate 
and admire. Again: under Palmerston^s direction, we 
called Belgium into existence, settled the succession in 
Spain and Portugal, drove away from Syria Mehemet 
Ali, made Greece a kingdom, and blockaded the 
African coast to put down slavery. People who do 
not examine matters very closely think it a fine thing 
to read what an English fleet has been doing at the 
Tagus, or on the Douro, or on the coast of Africa ; or 
how an English minister has lectured the Bourbons 
and Ilapsburgs, or insulted the representatives of the 
great republic of the West, or succeeded in lowering 
the flag of France. That Palmerston has not preci- 
pitated the nation into war, argues not so mucli his 
discretion as his luck ; but the nation that docs not 



346 Deceased Members, 

see the danger^ admires the spirit, and forgets how 
Palmerston suffered Poland to be blotted out, dis- 
dained to assist Hungary, betrayed Sicily, hastened to 
congratulate Napoleon for erecting an iron despotism 
on the ruins of a republic, and twice since he was 
Premier was brow-beaten and bullied by the late idiot 
King of Naples. But perhaps the great secret of the 
popularity of the Palmerston foreign policy is its utter 
unintelligibility. Non-interference in what does not 
concern us is clearly our duty ; Lord Palmerston ac- 
cepts this, yet he interferes. We are not in a position 
to go lecturing, yet Palmerston is never happy unless 
so employed. The Palmerston foreign policy — in 
reality very much like that of Lord Aberdeen, for 
since the time of Canning the policy of the Foreign 
Office has differed but little — has this good about it, 
that it must weary people of sense of secret diplomacy. 
The world will move on, its dark places will be made 
light, its crooked places will be made straight ; but if 
we may judge from the past, not by the manoeuvres of 
diplomacy or the protocols of Lord Palmerston. In 
his home policy the noble Viscount has been more 
successful in producing practical results. Here again 
he has gone at once to the national heart. An English- 
man must be comfortable, or he cannot live. The two 
great ills of life are a smoky chimney and a scolding 
wife. By Act of Parliament, Lord Palmerston has 
forbidden the one and has enabled the wretched victim 
to free himself of the other. This latter Act must 



Lord Palmcrsfon. 347 

always remain a proof of the noble Premier's earnest 
activity and perseverance. Night after night he and 
his Attorney-General^ Sir Richard Bethell, had to fight 
the battle alone; a man of feebler will than Lord 
Palmerston would have given way. When Palmerston 
became Home Secretary there was another sore evil 
under the sun : in all our crowded towns population 
had planted itself most densely in the neighbourhood 
of the churchyard; the result was, the living were 
poisoned by the dead. Some of the clergy, fearful 
of losing their vested interests, opposed the removal 
of this fearful nuisance, but Lord Palmerston shut up 
the churchyards as burial-places, and humanity gained 
the day. His few months at the Home Office were 
very beneficial to himself, and paved the way for his 
Premiership. The English public had a nearer view of 
their pet Foreign Minister ; no public' duty appeared 
to come amiss to him ; he was weighed in the balance, 
nor was he found wanting. In 1855, when the 
Aberdeen cabinet fell, when Lord John Russell had 
covered himself with odium by his desertion of the 
sinking ship, all eyes were directed to Lord Palmerston. 
He was the only possible Premier, and would have 
remained so had not the Conservatives caught him 
tripping on the Foreign Conspiracy Bill, and, with 
the aid of Mihicr Gibson, defeated a measure whicli 
otherwise most pr()bu])ly would have had their support. 
It must be also confessed, Palmerston required a re- 
buflf. Like Jcshurun of old, he waxed fat and kicked : 



348 Deceased Memhers. 

there was something approaching to insolence in his 
treatment of the House of Commons. 

Lord Palmerston's chief merit is his cheerful honesty. 
He has made no pretensions to virtue. The Record 
intimated that he was the man of God because he 
made low Churchmen bishops^ but Lord Palmerston 
himself never laid claim to so sacred a character. He 
has paid remarkably little deference to an enlightened 
British public. The lover must blame not his mistress, 
but himself, when he finds the idol of his fancy plain 
and commonplace. Beery readers of newspapers must 
not complain that their model statesman once resigned 
office rather than give them votes. The British public 
dearly love a lord that will take the chair at Exeter 
Hall. Lord Palmerston began life as Cupid — does not 
think children tainted with original sin — dared to tell 
the Scottish clergy that they had better wash than fast 
to keep off the cholera — was never on the platform at 
Exeter Hall : yet is he popular. With the exception 
of once presiding at the distribution of prizes at the 
University College, London, and a visit to Manchester, 
he studiously avoided the arts by which small men 
become great. The last American traveller who has 
published a book on us, Mr, Field, writes : " An 
American can hardly believe his senses when he sees 
the abasement of soul which seizes the middle classes 
in the presence of a lord. They look up to him as a 
superior being, with a reverence approaching to awe.'* 
There is some truth in this : it is to the credit of Lord 



Lord Falmerdon. 349 

Palmerston that lie has traded as little on this feeling 
as it was possible for any man to do. 

Come and see Palmerston the Statesman. . That is 
he — that old gentleman in the middle of the Treasury 
bench of the House of CommonS; with hat pulled down 
tightly over his eyes, arms across his breast_, and one 
leg thrown over the other. Is not he in a capital state 
of preservation, with nothing to hurt him but now and 
then a twinge of his old enemy, the gout — a souvenir 
of jollier years ? A wonderful old man, tnily ; stiU 
erect on horseback as ever youthful knight wending 
his way to lady^'s bower. Dr. Johnson said of dancing 
dogs, ^' the wonder is, not that they dance so well, but 
that they dance at all ;" so with Lord Palmerston, the 
wonder is, not that he rules the country so well, but 
that he does it at all, when most men would be in a 
state of idiotic decay. It says something for the good- 
ness of his lordship's constitution — something for the 
light character of his labours as a statesman of half a 
centmy, and something for the Romsey air and his 
lordship's medical attendants. But mark ! he is on 
his legs, with all the briskness of a four-year-old. His 
pertness is quite juvenile. How neat and effective is 
his retort, and yet how little there is in it ! Disraeli 
said Sir Ptobert Peel played on the House as an old 
fiddle, Palmerston docs the same. His birth, his office, 
his experience — all make him feci at home in it ; and 
when he sits down there is a laugh, aud the questioner, 
somehow or other, feels he has done something very 



350 Deceased Memhers. 

foolish^ tliough lie scarce knows what. Your expecta- 
tions are heightened. Very naturally you imagine that^ 
as the evening passes on, and the excitement deepens, 
his lordship, in a corresponding manner, will become 
earnest, and passionate, and overpowering. Wait a 
little while, and you will find out your mistake. 
There is the same pertness and levity ; the same eager- 
ness to evade the question by a joke ; the same skilful 
dodging ; the same artful adaptation of his speech, not 
to the conscience or convictions of the public, but to 
the prejudices, and knowledge, and interests of the 
House. No one so disappoints the eager stranger as 
Lord Palmerston. His hollow feeble voice — his in- 
tolerable haw-hawing — his air of hauteur and flippancy, 
all combine to dispel the illusion which, in a manner 
most wonderful, his lordship has contrived to gather 
around his name. 

" Life is a jest, and all things sliow it ; 
I thouglit so once, and now I know it," 

will be an appropriate epitaph wherewith to deck 
the marble monument that the grateful nation shall 
erect when death shall have torn the wily Premier 
from the doctor's care. Lord Palmerston never speaks 
long : he is down almost as soon as he is up, he seldom 
rises above the level of after-dinner oratory, and as 
you watch his lordship out of the House at one a.m., 
at the close of a debate which has tried his lordship's 
mettle and damaged the handiwork of his lordship's 
valet, the shambling old gentleman, leaning on a 



Sir James Graham. 351 

friendly arm, does not seem quite the prodigy in your 
eyes which the admirably made-iip nobleman did, who 
stepped out of his carriage just as you reached West- 
minster Hall. 

Nevertheless, it must be remembered that for half 
a century Lord Palmerston was a leading statesman, 
and during the latter half of that time the leading 
statesman of his age. As Foreign Minister for a 
generation at least, by his subtle intellect and resolute 
will, he dominated over Europe. Greece and Belgium 
were his handiwork ; he cherished constitutional 
government in Spain, and Portugal, and the Italian 
peninsula. France under his influence became our 
cordial ally. 

SIR JAMES GRAHAM. 

The life of Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton is one that de- 
serves to be studied by candidates for Parliamentary 
renown. In a letter to the late J. J. Gurney, Sir 
Thomas says, the debate on the Manchester Riots 
" convinced me that I have the opportunity of being 
a competitor on the greatest arena that ever existed, 
but it also taught me that success in such a theatre is 
only for those who devote their lives to it.^^ Sir 
Thomas declined to make the requisite sacrifice. Sir J. 
Graham has paid the price, and takes a foremost rank 
in any gallery of modern statesmen. He has devoted 
his whole life to the House of Commons, and he is a 



352 Deceased Memhers, 

fair specimen of a House of Commons orator. ^' The 
speaking," wrote Sir Thomas, ^' required, is of a very 
peculiar kind. The House \o\q& good sense and joking 
and nothing else, and the object of its utter aversion 
is tliat species of eloquence whicli may be called 
Philippian. There are not three men from whom a 
fine simile or sentiment would be tolerated ; all 
attempts of the kind are punished with general 
laughter.''^ This was written before Parliamentary 
Reform was won, but the description is still applicable. 
Parliamentary speaking has not altered in the least, 
and Sir James Graham, who won his laurels in the old 
days of corruption, is still a skilful debater in the 
greatest arena that ever existed. 

" Vidth and visdom grows together" was the remark 
of no less acute an observer of human nature than the 
respected parient of the immortal Samiwel Veller. In 
the case of Sir James Graham this truth is strongly 
exemplified. In a work published in 1839, entitled 
" St. Stephen's ; or, Pencillings of Politicians," I find 
a chapter devoted to a brace of turncoats. One of 
them is Sir Francis Burdett — he has long ceased to 
interest mankind; another is Lord Stanley — as Lord 
Derby, he is now the leader of the Conservatives ; and 
the third is Sir James Graham who is quoted as 
an example of " the wretched stuff which poor human 
nature submits to admii'c and wonder at." No man 
has been more odious in the eye of the British people. 
When Sir James, as Secretary of State for the Home 



Sir James Graham, 353 

Department, laid before the House of Commons the 
outline of his Factory Education Bill, the Dissenters 
raised such a storm that the hon. baronet was soon 
compelled to give way. When Mr. Thomas Duncombe 
proved that he had opened Mazziui^s letters, the fer- 
ment and outcry were greater still. At his head was 
hurled a torrent of abuse ; anti-Graham wafers were 
advertised, and met with an extensive sale. One 
could scarce believe that Sir James was the same in- 
dividual who had made radical speeches of the most 
violent character, who had a hand in drawing up the 
Reform Bill, and who, as Secretary to the Admiralty, 
had effected unexampled savings. And now, as you 
look below the gangway on the ministerial side, and 
see the gigantic form of Sir James, it cannot but occur 
to you that in that illustrious assembly there is not 
another man apparently so wise and wide. 

Good fortune was very favourable to Sir James 
Graham. She made him one of the strongest men in 
the House of Commons, and one of the wealthiest ; and 
by reason of those two qualities was he from the first 
a man of mark. To hear a wealthy baronet talking ra- 
dicalism forty years ago, was a curious novelty ; and 
by reason of his immense physical capacity did he live 
down his unpopularity, his political inconsistency, his 
recklessness on the platform and the hustings, his 
bitter partisansliip, inside St. Stephen's or out. His 
patriarchal appearance quite touched the heart of the 
stranger in the gallery. If there be truth in physiog- 

A A 



354 Deceased Members. 

nomy, Sir James could not have been the atrocious 
criminal at one time his enemies affirmed. In his youth 
he must have been a very fine-looking man. He had 
a portly frame and a most benign presence. Very few, 
says Mr. Doubleday, surpass him in power of ex- 
pression and the talent of commanding and enforcing 
attention. It was singular to watch him in a parlia- 
mentary fight. Sir James Graham had always a meek 
smile upon his face^ and as he turned to listen to the 
orator for the time^ who poured out upon him the vials 
of his wrath,, he seemed to say, " Oh, go on, my good 
fellow, you are not hurting me, but you are injuring 
youi'seltV^ There he sat, a great mountain of a man, 
with a calm placid face, which apparently no storm could 
rufile or disturb, and with a frame that would make its 
possessor conspicuous wherever men assembled. 

Perhaps,, respected reader, you are a stranger to 
the House, and of an excitable temperament. Perhaps 
you belong to that large class who cannot control their 
feelings. As the orator grows frantic, you do the same. 
As his bile rises, so does yours. You turn the light- 
ning of your eye on the apostate knight of Netherby, 
the opener of Mazzini's letters, the betrayer of the 
brothers Bandiera — even in his green old age the slan- 
derer of Layard — and you wonder the earth does not 
open and swallow him up, as it did Dathan and Abiram 
of old. Wait a little while. The age of miracles is gone; 
and yet I will show you a miracle. The orator sits 



Sir James Graham. 355 

down. Sir James is in no Imrry to rcj^ly. Slowly lie lifts 
up his big body and rises to speak. At any rate^ you 
say, the House will hoot him — it does nothing so rude, 
it receiA'es him with cordial cheers. Well, then, Sir 
James himself will speak with the faltering accents of 
conscious guilt — on the contrary, he is perfectly un- 
embarrassed. Well, then, his defence will be impotent 
and lame ; it will convince no one and disgust all — the 
real fact is nothing of the kind. It comes out slowly 
and calmly, as if the orator felt its truth. Letters are 
read, but all in the calmest and most deliberate manner, 
which show how very right was Sir James, and how 
very wrong the wicked man by whom he was attacked. 
You never heard such a candid speaker in your life. 
He looks as if he would not do a naughty thing for the 
world. What a depth of untold tenderness there is 
in that man's bosom ! How kindly he speaks of every 
one ! What innocent simplicity lurks in his face ! As 
he stands, slightly stooping, his arms behind his back, 
his voice seemingly broken with emotion, you fancy 
never was there a more injured person ; and when he 
indignantly asks if it is to be supposed that he would 
forfeit the reputation of a life? when he declares that his 
character is at stake, that at his time of life — so soon 
to pass away from among men — it was monstrous to 
suppose that he would do anything so paltry and 
mean as that with which he was charged, your warmest 
sympathies are aroused for the injured baronet, and 

A a3 



356 Deceased Members. 

you become indignant as you remember how lie has 
been the helpless victim of party slander^ of personal 
pique,, or lying tongues. 

His juvenility was, I imagine, another reason of Sir 
James's success. He was a boy, and remained so to 
the end of the chapter. I know he was born in 1 792, 
that he has been in and out of office times innumerable, 
that he has sat on all sides of the House, advocated 
all sorts of measures, and coalesced with all parties ; 
but the enthusiasm with which he did all this was 
youthful. He was an artless, simple, unsophisticated 
youth, devoted to politics. He accepted office be- 
cause he delighted in activity. He has done some very 
mischievous and disgraceful things for the same reason ; 
actually, in some instances — as when he denounced 
Lord John Russell's Ecclesiastical Titles Bill — he has 
evinced a sagacity for which few gave him credit, aud 
which fewer still appreciated at the time; but to the 
last he was in a state of development — his principles 
not yet fully formed, his judgment not fully ripe ; but 
still, from his position, from his abilities, from his 
cleverness as a debater, from his wide experience, 
from his intimacy with the great chiefs departed — a 
man with great influence in the House of Commons, 
one of the half-dozen whose speeches were looked for- 
ward to in every great political crisis. We all know 
Sir Robert Peel had a high opinion of Sir James, and 
Sir Robert's opinions had, and still have, immense 
weight in the House of Commons. In truth, in the 



Sir James Graham. 357 

House of Commons a man is judged independently 
of the opinions formed of him out of doors. Hence 
no juvenile indiscretion on the part of Sir James 
permanently affected the high position he took in that 
assembly when he first entered it^ and which he ever 
since retained. 

Sir James is emphatically a man of the times^ and 
for the times. As a politician he was always in a some- 
what chrysalis state. He, it is clear, cut himself off 
from the Derby party. For the same reason he could 
never be very closely allied with Lord John Russell. 
Sir Robert Peel was his Magnus Apollo. He was his 
most faithful, most sympathetic, most useful and devoted 
friend, and deprived of his leader, Sir Jameses course was 
somewhat desultory. His main fault has been this, that 
as a hard-working, busy party-fighter, he has never 
studied politics as a science, never been above the tu- 
mult and turmoil of party — never risen into the su- 
perior elevation of the political philosopher — never 
got a glimpse of abstract principles. He has contented 
himself with politics in the concrete ; he has wrestled 
with parties and persons as we can imagine one of his 
ancestors fought in the jolly old moss-trooping times. 
Sir James's faults and official blunders have been those 
of his class. La Fontaine tells us of a motherly crab, 
who exclaimed against the obliquity of her daiigliter's 
gait, and asked her if she could not walk steady. The 
young crab very reasona1)ly pleaded the similarity of 
her parent's manner of stepping, and asked whetlier 



358 Deceased Members. 

she could be expected to walk differently from the 
rest of her family. Sir James is like the rest of his 
family. Letters had been opened by previous Secre- 
taries of State, and when he opened Mazzini^s letters 
he was neither worse nor better than others. If he 
laid about him pretty freely, it is the manner of all 
faction and party fighters to do so ; and if he occa- 
sionally exhibited intense ignorance of the middle- class 
public — as shown in his Factory Education Bill — why, 
country baronets with thirty thousand a year have 
but little chance of understanding the shopkeepers 
and Dissenters of our borough towns. An amusing 
instance of this Sir James displayed on one occasion. 
In the course of a speech in favour of volun- 
tary education. Sir James quoted Mr. Baines, of 
Leeds — not then what he now is, a member of the 
House — as " a man of talent, though a Dissenter ;■'•' 
as if a man^s talents depended on his profession of 
religion. A middle-class man would have known that 
genius and talent are of no church. Yet, in the 
House of Commons, so ignorant are the leading men 
in it, necessarily such a phrase passes muster, and 
Sir James no doubt thought he paid Mr. Baines a 
high compliment. 

Sir Jameses deeds will remain to vindicate his claims 
to respect. On the whole he has been ou the side of 
progress. During the Reform agitation he did much 
to insure the passing of that measure ; and the aid he 
gave to Sir Robert Peel in fighting the great battle of 



W. Johnson Fox, 359 

commercial freedom Avas of the most invalnahlc charac- 
ter. As one of the faitliful band of " paid janissaries " 
and " renegades/^ as they were termed by Lord George 
Bentinck, Sir James stood by his leader manfully^ and 
fought with a courage the memory of which yet re- 
mains ; and when^ by means of a combination of 
Protectionists and Whigs^ Lord John Russell was 
placed in ofificC;, Sir James helped to preserve the 
ministry in their free-trade career. As regards eccle- 
siastical questions^ he has ever been consistent. He 
left the Whigs on account of their Appropriation 
schemes, and he was ever faithful to the church by 
law established in these realms. 



W. JOHNSON FOX. 

There is a virtue in our English constitution that, 
however aristocratic it may be, it is not exclusive ; 
here a low-born man may rise. It is true, at first he 
has a hard time of it, but it is equally true that, if he 
have talents — and sense enough to use them — he can 
climb up into a position of equality with the highest 
and the noblest in the land. When the Ten Hours' 
Bill was before the House of Commons, the late Mr. 
Joseph Brotherton, then M.P. for Salford, alluded to 
the period of his life when he was a factory boy, and 
detailed the hardships and wrongs to which lie was 
subjected, and the resolution tliat he had formed — to 
improve tiie condition of the factory hands, should 



360 Deceased Members. 

he ever liave tlie power. At the conclusion of his 
speech^ Sir James Graham rose up, and declared amid 
the plaudits of the assembly, that he did not know 
before that Mr. Brotherton had sprung from so humble 
an origin, but that it made him more proud than ever 
of the House of Commons, to think that a man rising 
from that condition should be able to sit side by side 
and on equal terms with, the hereditary gentry of the 
land. A barber^s grandson we have known to become 
Lord Chancellor ; a linen-draper's son, in our time, 
has been an archbishop. Privates rise from the ranks, 
and some of our naval heroes had names not supposed 
to indicate good family. A successful commercial 
career has also lifted a man into the privileged circles 
of the Upper Ten Thousand. Still, the cases are few 
in which a man without wealth or aristocratic con- 
nexion has been chosen by the English people to repre- 
sent them in their own house. Even when a class 
has been strong enough to send a man to St. Stephen^s 
to look after their own peculiar interests, his career 
has not been flattering nor his success great. The 
West Indian proprietors did not do themselves much 
good by returning Peter Borthwick. Feargus O'Connor 
got into Parliament, and Chartism immediately died 
out. The Tower Hamlets had little to pride them- 
selves on in the success of Mr. George Thompson — a 
man whose orations out of doors, in connection with 
the Anti- Slavery Agitation, were as brilliant as 
they were effective. Mr. Henry Vincent, though 



TF. Johnson Fox. 361 

lie stood for Ipswich, never got into the House of 
Commons at all. But occasionally we have an 
illustration of the fact that learning is hetter than 
house or land, and this has been illustrated in the 
person of Mr. Fox — whose father was a very small 
farmer in Suffolk, whose connexions were of the 
humblest character, who himself worked as a lad in a 
Norwich factory, and who long represented one of our 
most democratic boroughs — that of Oldham. Mr. 
Fox's position was creditable alike to himself and his 
constituents. Practically, it was an argument in favour 
of the extension of the franchise which was not lost 
on a thinking public. 

Years and years back, in the thinly-populated dis- 
trict of Homerton, there was an Academy — belonging 
to that most respectable body of dissenters then called 
Independents, now Congregationalists — presided over 
by that learned and pious divine, the late Dr. Pye 
Smith, whose " Scripture Testimony to the Messiah^' is 
still an authority in theological circles. To this 
Academy the youthful Fox was sent, at the suggestion 
of a congregation worshipping in a very ancient 
building — yet, I believe, existing in Norwich — who 
had witnessed the talents of the youthful disciple, and 
deemed that he might become a teacher and preacher 
among themselves. Mr. Fox passed through his aca- 
demical career successfully, and was settled, as the 
phrase is, as a minister somewhere in IIami)shirc. So 
far the result was favourable, and the Norwich people 



362 Deceased Memhers. 

prided themselves on their sagacity. The time now 
arrived when they were to be disappointed. In those 
days Neology had not made its appearance, but Uni- 
tarianism had ; and by the orthodox it was regarded 
as just as bad. To borrow a simile from Dryden's 
'^ Hind and Panther/' Reynard ravaged the garden, 
and pulled up and destroyed fruit and flower. One of 
the buds thus rudely torn away was William Johnson 
Fox. Possibly he was of a disputatious turn ; possibly 
he was led away by that celebrated William Taylor, 
the correspondent of Southey, who first made German 
literature known to the English, and who conferred 
on the old cathedral city in which he lived a literary 
reputation which Norwich has ever since done its 
best to retain ; possibly Fox had never been very 
orthodox. However, the time came when he publicly 
abandoned the denomination to which he belonged, 
and became a Unitarian minister. Ultimately he 
settled down in South-place, Finsbury-square, London. 
His Sunday morning orations were a great success ; 
he gathered around him many of the wits of London — 
Dickens, and Douglas Jerrold, and Macready were 
among his auditors ; he edited a magazine now defunct, 
wrote in the Morning Chronicle and other papers ; and 
as lecturer, and wit, and man of letters, took high 
rank in London life. 

Nor is this to be wondered at. A man of wide 
reading, ready memory, with a strong sense of humour, 
and inclining to the liberal and popular view of things, 



JF. Johnson Fox. 363 

if able to tnlk at all, may be siu'e not to talk in vain. 
The times also were propitious. When Mr. Fox com- 
menced public lifC;, people had not become indifferent 
to politics, and struggled fiercely against the optimist 
conclusion — 

" Whatever is, is right." 

The men with whom he lived had seen Sidmouth cover 
the land with a network of spies and informers ; had 
seen the Habeas Corpus Act suspended ; had heard of 
the massacre at Peterloo ; had applauded while Hone 
badgered Ellenborough to death ; and had sympathized 
with Hunt when in his cell for calling the Prince of 
Wales an Adonis of fifty. They had been taught by 
Godwin as he wrote of political justice ; by Owen's 
" New Moral World ;" by Shelley, as he passionately 
inveighed against the society which had robbed him 
of his children, and had driven him an outcast from 
his ancestral home. They had seen Sir Samuel 
Romilly in vain pleading that a poor wretch should 
not be hung for stealing goods of the value of five 
shillings; and their newspapers had told them how 
bishops and royal dukes had swelled the majority in 
the British senate in favour of the accursed slave trade. 
Hints that reached them of doings at the Brighton 
Pavilion — of the disgusting revelations of Mrs. Clarke 
— of the great trial at Westminster Plall, when the 
character of an English Queen was at stake, had made 
the middle and lower classes view with infinite akirm 
the aristocracy and all connected with them, lleform 



364 Deceased Members. 

had to be woiij and tlie Corn Laws destroyed. In 
those days a powerful writer and eloquent orator could 
do much, and Mr. Fox laboured at his vocation, and not 
in vain. His Anti- Corn-Law speeches were of the 
noblest order of eloquence, and had a most powerful 
effect. It seems to me we have no such orators now ; 
that we have fallen on evil days ; that duty has lost 
her charms, and that right or wrong are viewed by 
men now with an equally impartial eye. 

But it is time I point him out. You are in the 
Speaker's Gallery. As you look towards the minis- 
terial side, about half-way down, you will see at the 
end of the fourth bench the subject of the present 
sketch. You cannot mistake him ; there is not such 
another figure in the House. There are fat men in 
the House, there are short men; but there are none 
who so combine fatness and shortness as does Johnson 
Fox. There are very many serious, reverend-looking 
gentlemen in the House ; but there are none so 
serious and reverend-looking as Fox, who not only 
wears a Puritan hat, but who wears it with a Puritan 
air, and whom you might easily imagine side by side 
with Praise-God-Barebones, or Hew-Agag-in-pieces- 
before-the-Lord. The upper part of the face is that 
of the divine, the lower part that of the alderman. 
There is a rare world of speculation in that eye, and 
of good cheer in that double chin. How out of that 
pile of flesh there can come forth a clear, articulate 
sound, and some considerable amount of superior 



W. Johnson Fox. 3C5 

thought^ is to me a mystery, or would be did I not 
see upon the shortest and fattest possible body the 
largest possible head, still adorned by thick masses of 
grey hair, parted in the middle and hanging down on 
each side — altogether a face resembling very much 
that of John Bunyan. Mr. Fox's collar is down — no 
collar could stand up round such a chin — and an old- 
fashioned suit of black completes his tout ensemble. If 
his hat is on, you feel inclined to adopt the slang of 
the streets, and respectfully to ask the honourable 
gentleman, " Who is his hatter V for it is low and 
broad-brimmed, and of a style that never would have 
won the smile of a Count d'Orsay. The resemblance, 
then, is complete ; and if you could believe there were 
Puritans in these degenerate days, when Christians think 
they can make the best of both worlds, when actually 
one of our popular teachers tells us, that it is a sign 
of respectability to have an account at a bank — if, I 
repeat, in such times as these you can imagine that 
the men whose quaint words, and gloomy creeds, and 
self-sacrificing lives were heroic and marvellous then, 
and arc heroic and marvellous still — are still existent, 
you would swear that chief among them was William 
Johnson Fox. 

But Mr. Fox is on his legs. What a clear, musical, 
yet somewhat melancholy and mannered voice he has 
— how studied yet how natural is his air — how effective 
is his humour, and how marvellous his power of con- 
structing climaxes ! At any rate, there is nothing of 



366 Deceased Members. 

the demagogue about him. There is no screaming, 
no vulgarity, no disgusting vehemence of matter or 
manner ; but he gives you the idea of gentleness, and 
thought, and power. You tell me he is monotonous. 
Well, so he is. He stands in the same position in- 
variably, and speaks with the same tone. When you 
have heard him once you need not hear him again. 
Look at him ; his head is slightly on one side, his left 
arm, crossing his breast, supports his right elbow, and 
as he declaims, the fore-finger on his right hand em- 
phatically rises and falls. Mr. Fox was a speaker, 
not a debater. His style of speaking has been born 
elsewhere than on those benches, and may be read and 
understood as well out of the House as in it — as well 
next year as this, Mr. Fox was the pulpit orator in 
the House of Commons. His speaking was that of a 
man who has, all his life, had a little perch to himself, 
in which he can teach, and from which he can lay 
down the law ; and Mr. Fox was as much in it in St. 
Stephen^s as when standing in South-place, Finsbury- 
square. Well might George Stephenson once say to 
Sir Robert Peel, "Why, of all the powers above and 
under the earth, there seems to me to be no power so 
great as the gift of the gab.^'' 

EICHARD COBDEN, M.P. 

For a few years previous to the Crimean war, when 
the public in general believed that white-robed peace 



Hichard Cuhden. 367 

had taken up an eternal residence among the sons of 
meUj the name of Richard Cobden was one everywhere 
received with respect. Sir Robert Peel had testified to 
the power of his " unadorned eloquence." The ex- 
asperation of rosy-cheeked country squires^ not gifted 
with great oratorical powers^ had subsided almost into 
a calm as they found that the alteration of the Corn- 
Laws had impaired neither their influence nor their 
wealth. The manufacturing interests had, in a sub- 
stantial manner, by a subscription of 80,000/., testified 
their value of Mr. Cobden^'s services. The hero of the 
Anti-Corn-Law League, the opponent of the Taxes on 
Knowledge, the champion of the ballot, the Coryphseus 
of the Peace party, the decus et tutamen of the Fi'ce- 
hold Land Societies, had only to show himself to his 
countrymen to be regaled with the most vehement ap- 
plause. In Exeter Hall, in St. Martinis Hall, at the 
Freemasons' Tavern, at the City of London Tavern, at 
the Free Trade Hall in Manchester, or the Town Hall 
in Birmingham — in short, in all the haunts and homes 
of popular agitation, honours were plentifully showered 
on the man who had commenced his political career 
as an obscure Manchester cotton dealer ; who, by his 
wonderful tact, had won from a hostile senate the 
triumph of Free Trade, and whose very name was 
received on the continent as the embodiment — politi- 
cally speaking — of English thought and feeling. A 
plain citizen never achieved a higlicr pinnacle of 
greatness. A revolution, in its consequences even at 



368 Deceased Members. 

this distance of time not to be over-estimated^ and as 
yet but partially developed;, had been effected mainly 
by his agency. In old Eome, when Tiberius Gracchus 
headed a movement against the landed aristocracy, 
the result was a sudden and bloody death. In 
modern England the popular tribune meets wdth a 
happier fate. But this popularity was too great to 
last. When the Russian war broke out, Mr. Cobden^'s 
protest against it lowered him in the estimation 
of the mob. His conduct in the Chinese affair — 
when an old ally, Sir John Bowring, was condemned 
unheard — rendered him still more unpopular; and 
the clever appeal of Lord Palmerston to the country 
for awhile sent Mr. Cobden, politically speaking, to 
Coventry. It is a long lane that knows no turning. 
If Englishmen are ungrateful it is only for a season. 
When the passions and prejudices of the hour had 
passed, men of all opinions felt that, Cob den not in 
Parliament, that assembly was deprived of some por- 
tion of its lustre. To the honour of Rochdale be it said, 
it was the borough that, at the earliest opportunity, 
returned Mr. Cobden to his proper place ; and when 
the latter returned from America, where he had been 
sojourning a while, it was to find that not only 
was he once more an M.P., but that a seat in the 
Cabinet waited his acceptance. Still more, he lived 
to see it a matter of national regret that he did not 
join the Cabinet, and add right honourable to his 
name. In the case of Mr. Cobden we have a clear 



Bichard Cohden. 369 

illvistration of the axiom that it is the age that 
makes the man. When Cobden entered on public 
life, commerce was in need of a mouthpiece to assert 
her importance and to demand her rights. English 
country gentlemen had governed the country in ac- 
cordance with the fancied interests of English country 
gentlemen. How to keep up the rent was the pro- 
blem to be solved. That the time would ever arrive 
when the farmers would be scientific, and have a 
fair command of capital, and be enabled to pay higher 
rents and make more money under a system that did 
not prohibit the introduction of foreign corn, never 
entered into the heads of the landed class. England 
was growing to be the workshop of the world. From 
the backwoods of Canada, from distant Chicago, fi'om 
the banks of the Danube, from the vast corn districts 
of Southern Russia, there came a voice saying, " Give 
us your manufactures and take our corn. So will your 
poor have work, so will your hungry be fed, so shall 
commerce more effectually bind us in the golden cords 
of peace.^^ In Manchester, in Birmingham, in Sheffield 
and Leeds, where men live by the production of me- 
chanism and manufacture, this truth was clearly and 
painfully felt. But it was only till Avithin the last few 
years that the political existence of INIauchestcr, and 
Birmingham, and Sheffield, and Leeds, had been ad- 
mitted by our governing classes. Iluskisson was be- 
ginning to see the truth in these matters, but the 
sudden termination of his lamented life left the com- 

B B 



370 Deceased Members. 

mercial classes almost friendless and alone in tLe 
Senate. The landlords ruled the roast, and adminis- 
tered the game laws, and believed with Malthus that 
society had a tendency to advance beyond the means 
of subsistence, and stood aghast at the ever-increasing 
mass of pauperism, a terror by night and by day in their 
midst. The pious recommended resignation, the in- 
telligent began to inquire how it was that life was such 
a curse, that here there was abundance, there starva- 
tion. They found that our Corn-laws produced much 
of this mischief; that the time had come for England 
to burst her chains and take tremendous strides, or to 
be for ever fallen. At this crisis Richard Cobden 
arose. He had been a Manchester manufacturer ; he 
was now to be the utterance of the wants and wishes 
of the age. The best years of his life he devoted to 
that work, and the splendid testimonial subscribed to 
him by the people of England at the termination of 
the Anti-Corn-Law agitation was but a poor equivalent 
for the pecuniary losses he had sustained by renouncing 
a successful mercantile career. Even a subsequent 
pecuniary subscription, on the occasion of his losses by 
his American investments, was but a small per centage 
on the profits made by the subscribers under Free 
Trade. 

Is it not time that we begin to understand history ? 
The one great fact taught by wars, and rebellions, and 
revolutions of all kinds; by the decline and fall of 
Rome, by the collapse of French monarchies, by the 



Bichard Cobden. 371 

growth of English freedom, by the spread of Auglo- 
Saxon institutions in America and Australia; is, that 
by fair means or foul, every twenty-four hours a man 
must dine. Men are led by their passions rather than 
their principles. Understand this, and the past ceases 
to be a mighty maze without a plan. Understand 
this, and history is no longer a riddle. Understand 
this, and the curtain is drawn up and you see living 
men. Our statesmen and historians use fine phrases, 
but they have no meaning, and merely darken and 
perplex. For instance, who besides a professed states- 
man, or partisan writer, or Edinburgh Reviewer, 
ever cared a straw about the balance of power in Eu- 
rope ? Men are not moved by such phantoms. Yet, 
if you read history, you would think that millions of 
men have died, and millions of money have been 
squandered about an unmeaning phrase. The simple 
fact was, that in France people got hungry, and did 
not know how to satisfy their hunger without upset- 
ting a monarchy. From the peace of 1815 to 1830 
we had bad harvests and distress, and the result was 
a Reform Bill; a few years later the potato crop 
failed in Ireland, and we had Free Trade. Life is 
too short and people are too busy to go to war for 
the grand reasons given by the historian or embodied 
in state papers. In ordinary life the hottest poli- 
tician is a plain, plodding tradesman, taking care of 
the pence, and civil to his customers. In the same 
manner the ordinary life of a nation is devoted to its 

B 13 2 



372 Deceased Mem hers. 

material interests. If it be otherwise^ ttere is some- 
thing wrong. Perhaps Mr. Cobden understood this 
truth better than any man living. His perception of 
it was the secret of his success and the pole-star 
of his life. In developing this idea, he made sad 
havoc of old notions and party cries. An M.P. 
present in the House when Canning made that famous 
speech about calling the New World into existence, to 
redress the balance of the old, said : " While he was 
speaking, Mr. Canning seemed actually to have 
increased in stature, his attitude was majestic, his 
chest heaved and expanded, his nostril dilated ; a 
noble pride slightly curled his lip, age and sickness 
were forgotten and dissolved in the ardour of youthful 
genius." Cobden would never — could never — have pro- 
duced such an effect. Had he been in Canning's situa- 
tion, had he held the reins of power, his eye would have 
sparkled, and his breast would have expanded, and 
his whole frame would have quivered with emotion ; 
not that he had called into existence some half-dozen 
of the most accursed governments under the sun (for 
such Canning's emancipated colonies turned out), but 
that he had won for the toiling masses of his country- 
men a right to earn their daily bread. Undoubtedly 
that is the primary need. Without that right achieved, 
no nation can be prosperous, or renowned, or great. 
It is not in utter poverty that the Graces love to dwell. 
Where the struggle for existence is bitter and all-ab- 
sorbing, there is no moralitv. 



Richard C oh den. 373 

lization wortliy of the name, and man is but little better 
than a brute. A nation may fight to revenge the 
wrongs of oppressed nationalities^ but ere it does this, 
it must have done its duty to itself. 

Among the middle classes nine men out of ten told 
you what a pity it was that Mr. Cobden had lost himself 
by his peace crotchets. It is true he said many things, 
and some of them possibly not wise ones. A man who 
has made as many speeches as Mr. Cobden did is 
pretty sm-e occasionally to fall into blunders. In the 
heat and excitement of great struggles, things "are 
said which turn out to be utter folly, yet the speakers 
of them are not set down as fools. The Duke of Wel- 
lington said it would be madness in him to think of 
being prime minister, yet directly after he attained 
that exalted rank. You could almost always tell 
when Sir Robert Peel was about to turn by the 
solemnity and vehemence with which he asserted he 
was not. Did not Sir Robert Inglis prophesy that ten 
years after the Reform Bill was carried, the House of 
Peers and the State Church would be destroyed, and 
England would be turned into a republic ? Did not he 
say he would be afraid to trust the Bible to the people 
unless it was in the hands of the clergy of the Chm-ch 
of England ? And yet the man Avho could thus doubt 
the truth and power of the Bible, and could thus in- 
sanely prophesy, was, to the very last, representative 
of an English University. Lord Eldon uplicld tlic 
most disgraceful and sanguinary criminal code in 



374 Deceased Members. 

Europe, and for years he was worsMpped as tlie wisest 
of mankind. Many of our leading statesmen took an 
active part in opposing the Corn-laws, and predicted 
the most disastrous results. We do not sneer at them, 
hut Mr. Cobden and the champions of industrial rights 
are taunted everlastingly when they blunder, as if no 
other men did the same. For them and them alone 
there are no waters of Lethe. Surely this is hard 
measure. Public opinion in this country is led by 
the aristocracy, and they, of course, very naturally 
look upon the Cobden class with more or less disfavour, 
but the disfavour of the Manchester school is to be 
attributed to a deeper source. Old Hobbes tells us 
man naturally is in a state of war. The Manchester 
school ignore this primary fact, and thus run counter 
to the universal instincts of our race. War is a folly, 
a crime, a curse, but men have always fought never- 
theless; and now, when all Europe resounds with the 
measured tread of armed men, more distant than 
ever seems the day when the war-drum shall throb no 
longer, 

" And the battle flag be fiTrl'd 
In the parliament of man, in tbe federation of tbe world." 

Now Mr. Cobden's Peace speeches have not merely 
been falsified, but have been distasteful as well. Thus, 
when in a speech at Wrexham, in 1850, Mr. Cobden 
said he would rather cut down the expenditure for 
military establishments to ten millions, and run every 
danger from France or any other quarter, than risk the 



Richard C oh den. 375 

clanger of attempting to keep up the present standard 
of taxation and expenditure, common sense told us that 
the real question is one of national safety, and not of 
expense. If our war expenditure in time past had been 
greater we should have saved money now, as it is clear 
that our neglect in this respect has stimulated in other 
quarters increased activity. Mr. Cobden, in the same 
speech, said he believed there never was an instance 
known in the history of the world of as many as 50,000 
men being transported across the salt waters within 12 
months — an assertion which was proved fallacious very 
shortly after. In the same way he argued against 
a French invasion, because the French Emperor treated 
him personally with the utmost distinction, and because 
he and his family happened to have a comfortable 
domicile in Paris. Knowing the immense material ad- 
vantage to England and France of peace, he could see 
nothing in the immense naval preparations of that 
country — nothing in such fortifications as Cherbourg 
— nothing in the invective, which under the license of 
the government was launched forth in French Journals 
against perfidious Albion. " The pacific genius of 
the house of Pclham was not unknown to France, and 
fell in very conveniently with their plan of extensive 
empire,^' writes Horace Walpole, in his " Memoirs of 
the Reign of George 11.'^ Was not the passage appli- 
cable to Mr. Cobden ? The Peace party and Mr. Cob- 
den, in the same way, undoubtedly had much to do 
with that miserable Crimean war. The late Czar, I 



376 Deceased Mem h ers. 

have no doubt, imagined that Mr. Cobden and the 
Peace party represented England, and that under no 
circumstances whatever would she go to war. The 
late Czar saw an old ally at the head of affairs. He 
saw Mr. Cobden, the mouth-piece of thousands, repre- 
senting all war as absurd. He saw Peace Congresses 
perambulating the land, and he knew that the prime 
movers of them, the Quakers, were men who if smitten 
on one cheek, would meekly turn the other, and await 
the blow. He saw that we had allowed him to trample 
Hungary under-foot — that we had been silent when 
Poland was blotted from the map of nations — that 
wildly and viciously Protestant as we were, we had 
allowed the Pope to be re-seated on his tottering throne 
by the aid of French bayonets ; and might he not well 
think that so reckless had we become of our ancient 
prestige — so absorbed had we grown in the pursuit of 
wealth — so permeated had we been by Manchester 
oratory and Peace tracts^ that scarcely the dictates of 
self-preservation — certainly not the claims of humanity 
or the obligations of treaties, or the considerations of 
an enlightened public policy, or the cause of an effete 
race whose very existence in Europe was an anomaly — 
would induce us again ever to draw the sword ? The 
Peace party themselves helped to create this confusion. 
Everybody wished them well, and soldiers and sailors 
were at a discount. Most of them, simple-minded, 
good-meaning folk, fell very naturally into the error of 
mistaking; their select assemblies of neat Quakeresses 



Richard Cohden. 377 

and verdant youths for the people of England. "When 
Mr. Bradshaw, of the " Guides/^ died, — a decent man I 
doubt not, but not known to the nation in any capacity 
whatever beyond that of his trade^ — I myself heard 
Joseph Sturge at a public meeting at Edinburgh ex- 
claim that there were more tears shed when the nation 
heard of the death of Mr. Bradshaw than when the 
hero of Waterloo died. Now in England we simply 
laugh at such an assertion. But in Russia they coidd 
not see its absurdity. And the Czar having seen that 
in one agitation Mr. Cobden had represented the will 
of the nation, fell into the very easy error of supposing 
that on the question of Peace, as well as that of Free 
Trade, Mr. Cobden was similarly backed. Still more 
may be urged against Mr. Cobden. The war having 
once begun — Quaker Sturge having travelled to St. 
Petersburg, bearing the olive branch in vain — he 
should have remembered that he was an Englishman, 
and having lifted up his warning voice and finding 
it disregarded, should have ivaited till the nation had 
recovered from its war-fit. Mr. Cobden, it may be 
said, helped to prolong the Russian war in the same 
manner as the Jacobites in 1696 helped to prolong the 
war with Louis the Great. Macaulay tells us Louis 
was inclined for peace. After the failure of tlie As- 
sassination Plot he had made up his mind to the 
necessity of recognising William Prince of Orange as 
king of England, and had authorized Calliorcs to 
make a declaration to that effect, but the Jacobites in 



378 Deceased Members. 

London wrote to tlie Jacobites in St. Germain^s sucli 
tales of the distresses of the country — of its exhaustion 
and the unpopularity of the Prince^, that to the great 
joy of the non- jurors Callieres became high and 
arrogant^ and denied that William was anything more 
than a pretender to the throne. 

Mr. Cobden was strong enough to have said,, " \, in 
common with the wise and good of the British nation, 
have blundered, and find the Millennium of peace 
further off than I dreamed.^^ 

All men deprecate war. It is not to be believed for 
an instant that the men in drab are the only friends to 
peace. As sincerely and passionately as Mr. Cobden 
did himself, we believe, do our leading statesmen long 
for peace ; for illustration of this we have only to look 
to the Ashburton capitulation, as Lord Palmerston 
termed it, and the cession of the Ionian Islands to 
Grreece : but we cannot shut our eyes to the fact 
that the course of events has placed us in the fore- 
most files of time — that we may not stand in despi- 
cable isolation, printing calicoes and jingling guineas, 
while the strong are trampling on the weak, and robbery 
is being attempted at our very doors. Sure are we 
that when the nation shaU have stooped to take so 
mean a view of its vocation, its glory will have de- 
parted, and the period will have arrived when the 
famous picture of Macaulay shall be realized, and the 
stranger from New Zealand, standing on London 
Bridge, and contemplating the ivied ruins of St. PauFs, 



Richard Cohden. 379 

shall mark the traces of a greatness that has passed 
a-vray. The spirit that animates the nation in a 
righteous war is a noble one. Humanity has shone 
brightest at such periods. It would require the most 
profound ignorance of history for a man to assert that 
the contests which gave the victories of Marathon and 
Salamis to the Greeks — that roused up in the Middle 
Ages the followers of the Crescent and the Cross — 
that triumphed at Waterloo — that crushed the Indian 
revolt — were among the least illustrious events that 
occupy and adorn the annals of the world. Oui' most 
pacific periods of history have not been our most bril- 
liant ones. About eighty years since, our statesmen were 
very pacific. Our national income was unequal to our 
peace establishment; our navy was a '^^ visionary fabric ;" 
our troops were not sufficient to be of any service ; 
Frederic the Great had civilly declined the overtures 
of Mr. Fox ; we had attempted to patch up an igno- 
minious peace; yet a War Minister came into office, 
and never did the nation achieve a wider reputation, or 
wield a more irresistible power. 

Mr. Cobden, like Mr. Bright, underrated the influ- 
ence of the landed aristocracy, and he was too willing 
to believe that the public is an enlightened body, act- 
ing solely from a sense of its own interests. The truth 
is, that the public, whether of France or England, is 
very often the dupe of its passions and fancies, and 
that in England, whatever may be done occasionally 
by dwellers in cities, the real power is in the hands 



380 Deceased Members. 

of the land- owners. He and Mr. Briglit also 
took it for granted that we had a party in this 
country who wish to go to war merely for the sake 
of war. 

" What do you think of Cobden ?" said the writer 
to a large Norfolk farmer, after the former had been 
delivering an address in the fine old hall of the county 
town. '■'^ Why/-" said he, " I believe if Cobden had 
held up a sheet of white paper and told us it was black,, 
we should all have sworn the same thing.^'' This 
answer may be accepted as a fair description of Cobden 
as a speaker. By his appearance he disarmed all pre- 
judices. You saw a man of middle size, very plainly 
dressed, rather fresh coloured, with brown hair slightly 
streaked with grey, and with arched eyebrows, which 
gave him a very shrewd appearance. There was a 
harshness in his voice, but that went oflF after he had 
spoken a sentence or two, and there was such an ease 
about the man, such a clever adaptation of himself to 
his audience — you felt so much at home with him, he 
had so thoroughly the air of one arguing alone and 
familiarly with yourself — that it was almost impossible 
at any rate while he was speaking, not to range yourself 
on his side. His unaffected good nature, his natural 
pleasantry, were irresistible. In the House of Commons 
he was much the same as on the platform, equally clear, 
equally unaffected, equally at home. There he stood 
on the right of the Speaker below the gangway, 
slightly stooping, as if from physical languor, alter- 



Richard Cohden. 381 

nately pointing with tlie fore-finger of his right hand 
to some honourable gentleman on the Opposition 
benches^ with whom, if you could only see and not 
hear, you would suppose he was carrying on a very 
animated conversation. Occasionally the left hand was 
brought into play, and by means of sundry taps ad- 
ministered to it by his right, Mr. Cobden denoted that 
he had made some very effective observations. Mr. 
Cobden did not attempt eloquence — did not quote 
the classics — was very seldom vritty — but gave you the 
idea of a plain man talking upon business in a business- 
like way. You listened to him in vain for the magic play 
of fancy — for rhetoric " rich with barbaric j)earl and 
gold^^ — for a philosophy that shall live when speaker 
and hearer shall have passed away. He made no 
attempt at display ; never did you hear a more natural 
speaker, and we may add, fairer reasoner. Charles Fox's 
test of a speech is eminently applicable to Mr. Cobden. 
" Does it read well ? if so it was a bad speech.'' 
As spoken his speeches were always a success. Mr. 
Cobden satisfied himself with arguing the questions of 
the present moment with the facts of the present ; all 
his references, all his hits and his speeches, abounded 
with them ; all his arguments were gathered from the 
experience of the day ; to the men of to-morrow 
he left the task of doing to-morrow's work. Indeed, 
before his decease there were symptoms occasionally 
discernible indicating that Mr. Cobden was more ready 
to seek repose than to buckle on the armour for fresh 
fights. 



382 Deceased Mem h ers. 

In one thing lie was to the last, however, as earnest as 
ever. In the cause of Free-trade, and the vast interests 
involved in the idea, he neither tired nor fainted. For 
the recent changes in the commercial policy of France 
— for the pledge it gives ns of peace — for the plenty 
it will give to manufacturing millions on each side the 
Channel — for all the blessings, social, intellectual, 
moral, it will scatter the wide world over — ^let the 
English nation tender grateful thanks to Richard 
Cobden. 

MR. THOMAS S. DUNCOMBE. 

No account of parliamentary orators would be com- 
plete or satisfactory that did not include the name 
of Mr. Duncombe. It is true he belongs to the past 
rather than to the present ; but be was the pet of the 
people at one time, did good service in his day, 
and represented a class of men becoming rare. The 
gay young aristocrats who went in for popular ap- 
plause, have been a numerous class. When we think 
of them, the names of Alcibiades, Count Mirabeau, 
and Charles James Fox, instinctively recur to our 
minds. They had a love of liberty which they car- 
ried out to the fullest extent. They were the wonder 
and admiration of their contemporaries. How intense 
was their contempt of money, how ardent was their 
pursuit of pleasure, and how complete was their devo- 
tion to the cause of the people ! Men smiled on them, 
and women too. In this soberer age of ours, we 



Mr. nomas S. Bimcomhe. 383 

can scarce understand their ways, or do justice to 
theii' character. Mr. Duncombe was almost the last of 
his class. A rising statesman now must work hard to 
win his laurels. He must lecture at Mechanics' In- 
stitutionSj he must attend at the sitting of the Social 
Congress, he must be always at his place in Parlia- 
ment, and, if he appears on the platform of Exeter 
Hall, so much the better. It may be that we have 
gained in honesty, but I am not quite so sure of that. 
There are whited sepulchres now as there were when 
the Gospel story was first published to the world. 

Middle-aged or rather elderly gentlemen will tell you 
that young Thomas Duncombe, then M.P. for Hert- 
ford, was one of the handsomest and gayest men about 
town some thirty or forty years ago. Whatever are 
their politics, they will all confess how dashing was 
his appearance, how sparkling was his eye, how 
musical his voice, and how gentlemanly his breeding. 
I take up a series of parliamentary portraits by a Con- 
servative writer. He says, " If the shade of Beau 
Brummell had revisited the earth to nominate his 
presiding genius in the departments of fashion in the 
senate, his choice must have fallen on the honourable 
member, for in person Duncombe is the beau ideal of 
a gentleman ; dresses well, and always in keeping, as 
far as fashion goes, with its most approved modes ; 
never seen with less than brilliantly-polished and well- 
fitting boot, a smart, somewhat d^Orsay hat, beautiful 
lavender or straw-coloured kid gloves, and a turn-out. 



384 Deceased Members. 

by way of equipage, worthy of an aristocrat of the 
highest order. If a line be pardoned in favour of his 
personal attractions, we might venture to observe^ in 
conclusion, that if the days of chivalry were returned, 
and a dashing cavalier selected from some gay trouba- 
dours to pay homage to the shrine of his ladye love, 
few knights would stand more prominent in the ranks 
than the popular M.P. for Finsbury/' Mr. James 
Grant, in his " Random Recollections,^^ gives an equally 
agreeable character of Mr. Duncombe. He was then 
a favourite in the House and a favourite out of doors. 
Of course, much was due to his singularly attractive 
personal appearance. Few could be angry with such 
a well-bred, agreeable man of the world. However 
extreme might be his opinions, however uncompro- 
mising his speeches, however he might tease and irri- 
tate officials (for when Mr. Duncombe was an ardent 
politician there were thousands of Chartists in the 
country — men who believed in Feargus OTonnor 
and the Northern Star, of whom Mr. Duncombe was 
the mouth-piece), somehow or other men did not get 
angry when the Finsbury M.P. was on his legs. There 
was always a merry twinkle in his eye, as if he were 
in fun, and then his manner was so easy, his voice so 
pleasant, his tact so admirable, that his bitterest ene- 
mies could not find it in their hearts to be angry. It 
was seldom that he made long and laboured speeches; 
hi's, forte was rather in asking questions, in presenting 
ultra-Radical petitions, and in making statements 



Mr. Thomas S. Buncombe. 3S5 

relative to aggrieved (more especially Finsbury) indi- 
viduals; and this he did to perfection. No man in 
the House had a happier knack of making a clear, in- 
telligible statement in a manner simple and unaffected, 
and of occasionally relieving it with a little touch of 
humour; and when he took iip the case of INIazziui, 
and couA-icted Sir James Graham of opening letters 
sent through the Post Ofiice, he achieved a triumph 
of which almost every man, woman, and child in the 
British dominions was proud. The old poet tells us 
of a certain individual, that 

" If to his sliare some trifling "'errora fall, 
Look in ids face, and you'll forget them all." 

Duucombe could stand this test better than any man 
in the House ; and yet he was not merely a Liberal 
but an ultra- Radical, when merely to be Radical was 
to be low, and ungentlemanly, and little better than 
one of the wicked. How came Mr. Buncombe con- 
nected with such a set? the question is interesting. 
Sheridan said Lord Holland (Tom Moore is our autho- 
rity) was an annual parliament and universal suffrage 
man, but it seemed rather as a waggery that he 
adopted it. " There is nothing like it, he would say ; 
it is the most convenient thing in the world. When 
people come to you with plans of reform, your answer 
is ready, Don^t talk to me of your minor details. 1 
am for annual parliaments and universal suffrage ; 
nothing short of that." Did Duncombe act in this 
manner? The thought is uncharitable, yet some 

c c 



3 S 6 Deceased Members. 

burning and shining lights of the popular party have 
been open to the charge. We are told Wilkes was 
indignant when taken for a Wilkesite. Men often act 
from mixed motives^ and even patriots are imperfect. 
]Mr. Buncombe could, however, do what few men could — 
point to an independent career of many years. There 
was a time when the sweets of office would have 
been acceptable ; yet he remained unshackled by its 
trammels, nor did he, even to please the very large 
religious public of Finsbury, in any way identify 
himself with their proceedings. I never heard even 
of his being at a Eagged School meeting, or subscrib- 
ing a farthing for the reforming young females. This 
is something, when we remember how old sinners by 
such means die in the odour of sanctity, — when we 
remember that not long since a Solicitor-General laid the 
foundation of a Primitive Methodist Chapel, and the 
wonderful Wolverhampton speech of Sir Richard 
Bethell (now Lord Westbury) . But I have been speaking 
of Mr. Dun combe as he was in the hot days of Reform. 
The gay Tom Duncombe of the fashionable world of late 
had grown sedate and elderly, kept good hours, and 
took great care of his health. You did not see him in 
the House after midnight, and it was seldom that he 
spoke after the dinner-hour. The agile frame was 
almost a skeleton ; age dimmed those eyes once 
so full of fire and light ; the jet-black hair was 
gone, and in its place we had a wig ; the pleasing, 
cheery voice sounded hollow and reedy ; yes, there. 



Mr, Thomas S. Dancomhe. 3S7 

beLiud tlic Treasury benches — that pale, tall, thin, 
elderly geutlemaii in black — was all that remained 
of that universal favourite, Tom Buncombe. How- 
ever, even to the last there was still about him some- 
thing of the old style. In that hour devoted to 
notices of motion and questioning of Ministers be- 
fore the orders of the day are read, Mr. Duucombe 
often spoke, and almost as effectively as of yore — 
often, as of old, by his ready wit, provoking laughter. 
When he said " ^Tis impudence and money make the 
peer,^' every one wondered that he was not prosecuted 
for libel. We, in these latter days, have reason to be 
thankful to men who, like Buncombe, aided in the 
great struggle of the past. Religiously, aud com- 
mercially, and politically free, the last thirty years 
have been years of wonderful progress, of softening of 
party hates, of abandonment of prejudice, of rooting 
out of error, of exploding absurdities and injustices 
and ancient wrongs. 

Mr. Buncombe^s political career was a long one. 
His parliamentary existence began in 1824, when 
he sat for Hertford, which place he continued to 
represent till 1832, when he Avas ejected by Lord 
Ingestre, the honour of which was not long enjoyed, 
as a petition against Lord Ingestrc's return, by the 
friends of Mr. Buncombe, had the effect of unseating 
the noble lord. In 1834 the retirement of the Right 
Hon. Robert Grant caused a vacancy for Finsbury, 
and agreeably to the powerful requisition of its 



388 Deceased Members. 

electors, Mr. Thomas Duncombe, according to his own 
words, " was translated, as the bishop says, to its 
see/' By descent Mr. Thomas Slingsby Duncombe 
was the last of a staunch line of Tory ancestry. His 
father was a brother of Lord Faversham, and his 
mother was the daughter of a High Churchman, Dr. 
Hinchcliffe, Bishop of Peterborough. His connexions 
were not of the,class from which advocates of theCharter 
have sprung, though possibly his birth and breeding 
may have tended to make him more acceptable to 
Finsbury constituencies. Dod briefly sums up the 
gentleman's political creed as follows : — ^' A Radical 
reformer, is in favour of triennial parliaments and the 
ballot." Said I not rightly, Mr. Duncombe belongs 
to the past rather than the present ? What elections 
now are decided with reference to triennial parliaments 
and the ballot ? I question if a declaration of attach- 
ment to either of them now would secure a single 
vote. We have got beyond these formulas. We are 
now more social and religious reformers. The years 
have brought to us 

" A higher heiglit — a deeper deep." 

HENRY DRUMMOND. 

" To waive all considerations of personal friendship 
and esteem," wrote Edward Irving, in a preface to a 
volume of occasional discourses, "■ no one whom the 
religious stir and business of the last thirty years hath 



Henry Brummond. 389 

brouglit conspicuously before the Church, hath so 
strenuously served her best interests, through good 
and bad report, or doth so well deserve her thanks, as 
doth the man who brought forward, from their ob- 
curity and persecutions, both Burckhardt and Wolff, 
and upheld their way against the sharp tongues of 
prudential and worldly-wise Christians ; who laid the 
foundations of the Continental Society, and hath built 
it up in the frown and opposition of the religious 
world ; who detected and dragged to light the false 
reports concerning the state of religion on the Conti- 
nent, with which the Bible Society in its palmy times 
had closed the charitable ear of the Church ; who has 
stood forth as the friend and patron of every society 
which hath any show of favour for the Jews; and 
finally, who hath taken us, poor, despised interpreters 
of prophecy, under your wing, and made the walls 
of your house like unto the ancient schools of the 
prophets/'' 

The reader will scarce guess for whom this dedica- 
tion was composed. Perhaps he will think the subject 
of it was some wealthy clergyman or zealous bishop 
for a wonder trespassing beyond conventional limits, 
and showing himself a man earnest in matters of re- 
ligion. It will save some trouble if I declare at once 
the eulogy was addressed to no other than the gentle- 
man whose name heads this sketch — Henry Drummond, 
M.P. — a man whose plain mission seemed to be to 
teach that all was humbug under the sun. Tlie 



39 Deceased Mem 



Egyptians at their feasts placed a skeleton to remind 
them of their mortality. We are told the Sultan 
Saladin had the same message proclaimed to him day 
by day^ lest, in the flattery of courtiers, and in a career 
of military successes^ he should forget so terrible a 
truth. Drummond performed a similar duty in Parlia- 
ment. In his eye we were all morally dead; all 
virtue was gone clean out of us. Under the mask of 
patriotism he saw the grovelling soul of the placeman ; 
in the love of liberty, the desire of license; in the 
people, an untaught mass, the prey of charlatans and 
quacks. Drummond reminded you of the 

" Gray and tooth-gapped man as lean as deatli," 
whom Tennyson describes in his " Vision of Sin,^^ and 
like him, he poured out a strain so sad and atheistic 
you would fain hope it false. Yet Drummond was an 
angel of the Irvingite Church, not as the result of a 
sudden whim, but as the proper climax to a long pro- 
fessional religious career. 

But I beg the reader^s pardon for keeping him so 
long out of the House of Commons. Let us suppose 
it is a debate on any serious subject. The abolition of 
death punishments, for instance — a question embracing 
the whole range of subjects connected, not merely with 
the lives of wretched criminals, but with all the de- 
fences by which society would guard itself against 
crime. We will take the usual debate on this subject 
as an illustration. Mr. Ewart has of course defended 
his motion with his usual ability. Mr. Hadfield, a 



Henry Drummorid. 301 

Mancliester attorne}^^ but representative of Sheffield, 
with a querulous, unpleasant voice, like that of a man 
who deserves to be in a minority, has seconded Mr. 
Ewart, and immediately there rises from the gangway 
— the first bench on the floor on the left — a tall, 
clerical-looking gentleman, who at once makes the 
House laugh. Listen to him : — " The proposition was 
for a Select Committee to inquire into the operation 
of the law imposing the punishment of death. Noav 
he should have thought the operation of that law was 
simple enough" (hear, and a laugh). Again the hou. 
gentleman extracts another laugh on a subject at the 
first glance certainly not very facetious. The speaker 
continues : — ^' But the hon. gentleman called upon 
them to abolish the punishment of death on the 
ground of its uncertainty. Now, what punishment 
could be more certain than that of death he could not 
conceive" — (hear, and a laugh) — and thus at any rate 
the amusement of the evening was heightened. Now 
on almost all subjects this eccentric M.P. thus spoke, 
invariably as much as possible in opposition to every 
one else. 

In the memoirs of the Brothers Ilaldane, we read, 
in the early part of the present century, of the arrival 
at Geneva of a gentleman whose " pleasing manners 
and aristocratic bearing, finely-chiselled features and 
intellectual forehead, bespoke his breeding and intelli- 
gence \ whilst in his acute and penetrating glance, wit, 
sarcasm, and the love of drollerv seemed to contend 



392 Deceased Members, 

with earnestness, benevolence^ and an ever-restless 
Athenian craving after novelty/^ To this yonng man, 
just entering into life, it seemed that all the world 
could offer was within his grasp. As the grandson of 
the first Lord Melville^ the high offices of State were 
fairly within his reach. With wit and bouDdless wealth, 
what a life of pleasure, such as Alcibiades might have 
envied, was within his reach ! yet, while other men 
were climbing up the steep hill of fame, or dimming 
their lustre in the search after gold — or following the 
phantom pleasure far over hill and dale, till weary and 
way-worn she left them in utter darkness and despair 
— Henry Drummond was drawing around him a select 
circle to study the dark sayings of the prophets, and 
to gather from them the weapons with which to turn 
to folly the wisdom of these latter days. Three curious 
volumes in octavo, entitled ^' Dialogues on Prophecy,-'-' 
written by the host himself, and much subseqTient con- 
fusion in the Christian Church, evinced that these be- 
wildering conferences were not altogether without in- 
fluence in their day. But one can^t go on studying 
the prophets for ever. Englishmen especially cannot 
get rid of their inborn propensity to break away from 
cloudland into practical life. Not merely do such as 
he of " Locksley Hall,^^ with strong hearts torn and 
bleeding with the bitter agony of a manly love 
wantonly trifled with or basely betrayed, exclaim — 
" T must nerve myself to action, lest I witlier in despair ;" 
but all men, whatever be their inward sorrows. 



Hennj Brummond. 3C3 

recognise the trutli_, not merely as a universal la^Y of 
humanity, but as a blessed means of escape from 
entanglements of the heart, or difficulties of the head. 
Another reason may be urged — (the mighty master 
dead — the eloquent tongue, that, like the voice of a 
tinimpet, terrified our Modern Babylon with the cer- 
tain coming of a millennial day, silent in the grave — 
the brain become dust that had to contend, not merely 
with the wit and wisdom of the world, which in its 
higher light it would see to be folly, but with the keen 
and cruel enmities of the Church) — silence in the 
halls of the prophets, and they 

" Scattered on the Ali)ine moiintains cold," 

what was there to forbid Drummond laying down his 
spiritual pursuits and betaking himself to others more 
congenial with human weakness and the claims of 
actual life. Thackeray sings — 

" Ho ! pretty page with the dimpled chin, 
That never has known the barber's shear, 
All your wish is woman to win, 
This is the way that boys begin, — 
"Wait till you come to forty year." 

By the light of years one reads things difTerently to 
what one does in one's earlier days ; or if that be not 
the case, possession cloys the appetite, and we find in 
change relief. Just as the elegant roue, subsides into fat 
and matrimony, or the spendthrift becomes penurious, 
so Henry Drummond left the fathers for the senators, 
and forsook the school of the prophets that he might 



394 Deceased Members. 

raise in St. Stephen^s a voice almost as obscure and 
unmeaning as those of prophecy itself. West Surrey 
contained the country-house of Henry Drumraond ; 
what more natural than that it should return him as 
its representative ? West Surrey belongs to a few 
lords^ and was not Drummond lordly by connexion 
with wife and mother ? In West Surrey at any rate 
such logic was not unpalatable^ and accordingly in 1847 
Henry Drummond^ a country gentleman of a sancti- 
monious turn — a theologian and a banker — a wit, yet 
a member of the liaut ton — became its M.P. The man 
who combined all these characteristics — who could tell 
a scandal with a relish one moment, and the next 
plunge many a fathom deep into the millennial con- 
troversy; who could talk in the true bucolic vein to 
the Tyrrels and Newdegates, and at the same time 
could say a good thing worthy to be told at the clubs 
with the last epigram of Jerrold or the newest sarcasm 
of Rogers ; who could uphold the sacraments and yet 
abhor the Pope ; who would admit the existence of all 
the abuses complained of by reformers, and yet uphold 
them on the plea that it were vain to attempt to make 
things better — till He should come whose right it was 
to reign ; who could abuse the Church and yet spurn 
Dissent — was not an ordinary man. 

Austere and crotchety, elderly and cynical, Henry 
Drummond was an extraordinary man merely to look 
at. He was tall and thin, with an oval head^ a calm, 
passionless face, and short, scant grey hair. There was 



Henry Drummond. 395 

an air of the recluse about him. Oue would expect to 
find him at Oxford or Cambridge rather than iu the 
House of Commons. Yet not only did you find him 
there^ but he was a favourite with the House. When 
he spoke there was always a rush from the smoking- 
room and the lobbies. In the first place, he was what 
all Englishmen like — rich ; in the second place, he had 
the good sense never to bore you, and never to be long ; 
in the third place, he was often witty, and invariably 
crotchety and odd. There are several men who at- 
tempt wit in the House. Lord Palmerston does, but 
his is generally sheer flippancy, and would be insuffer- 
able in a man who was not on the pedestal, but had a 
position to make."^ Sibthorp did, but his was of an 
inferior character, yet an enlightened English consti- 
tuency could return him, and will return his family 
for ever — at any rate, so long as they keep the estate. 
One of the Lennoxes — the stout one, not the thin one 
who handed glasses of water to Mr. Disraeli when he 
was doing the orator on an extensive scale — attempts 
to be jocose, but his is the tragic mu'th of a gay man 
about town, and has the same cflPect on you as that of 
the celebrated peer of Avhom Tom Moore sang that 
when 

" The House looks unusually gi-ave, 
You may always be sure that Lord Lauderdale's jokin;^." 

Then there is the wit of t]ic cynic of tlic Dean Swift 

* This, it must be remembered, was written duriiiy Jjurd 
Palmerston's first premiership. 



396 Deceased Members. 

school^ but slightly altered and improved^ with all 
the improper passages omitted, with a dash of extra 
bitterness gathered from the fairest regions of theolo- 
gical controversy — scholarly and gentlemanly. That 
was the wit of Drummond, uttered in the mildest man- 
ner^ and with the thinnest possible of voices, almost, 
inaudible in the gallery, so that the House was kept in 
a state of the utmost soul-harrowing quiet and suspense, 
till he got to the end of a sentence, when it occurred to 
every one that Mr. Drummond had been uncommonly 
funny, and the House relieved itself by a hearty laugh 
— a laugh generally heralded by a few preliminary 
explosions from the more impulsive members, as the 
orchestra tunes up previous to a grand overture, or as a 
few random shots may be heard ere rank and file on the 
battle-field may begin their murderous fire ; and when 
you read the Times next morning you were not surprised 
to find that " laughter" was reported after most of Mr. 
Drummond's remarks. I cannot find that the debate 
gained much by Mr. Drummond^s speeches. I do not 
imagine he intended it should. His object appeared 
to be simply to amuse and mystify the House. He 
seemed to assume that the House had made up its 
mind how it should vote long before the discussion 
commenced, and therefore in a quiet, unostentatious 
way Mr. Drummond merely uttered a few sentences 
and attained his object. I need scarcely observe 
then that he was an original ; no other defiuiiion of 
him can be given. He was neither Whig, Tory, nor 



Henry Druhimoyid. 397 

Radical. I believe the author of " Who is Who^^ would 
be puzzled to describe to -what class the member for 
West Surrey belonged. In the early part of Disraeli's 
career^, a pamphlet was published with the title 
" What is He ?" I could imagine a pamphlet having 
such a title with reference to Mr. Drummond, would 
have a very fair sale among his constituents. In 18-17 
Mr. Drummond walked over the course unopposed, yet 
I much question whether his constituents could have 
told what he was. Dod tells mc INIr. Drummond was 
a Couservative ; that he was a member of the Royal 
Academy of Fine Arts in Florence j that he founded 
the Professorship of Political Economy at Oxford — 
feeling, I suppose, his own deficiency in this respect ; I 
learn also, that he was a magistrate ; and as he always 
sneered at the present age, I am not surprised to find 
that he was the president of one of the literary institu- 
tions (the Western) so peculiar to tlie present age. He 
believed people cannot live without good beer, yet he 
only knew one house in Surrey where they could get 
it good. He said that the food of the people shoukl 
be as free from taxation as the air they breathe, jet 
he derided the free traders. He was opposed to all 
measures for taxing one sect for the support of the 
clergy of another, yet he always wrote against the 
abolition of church rates. He believed in Clod's 
goodness, and yet rolled as a sweet morsel under his 
tongue — and Avould propound it unhesitatingly in the 
House of Commons, where, of all places, theological 



398 Deceased Members. 

dogmas should liave no room — the utter depravity of 
infants at tlieir birth. He borrowed from Rome the 
idea of a Catholic and Universal Church, and then 
abused the Pope. All men are rogues, and therefore, 
he argued, it was folly to expect honesty in politics or 
in the administration of state affairs. He thought so 
meanly of his constituents that he told them they did 
every day what the Czar did when he originated the 
late war. He was an author, yet he abominated the 
press. But time fails me, and I give up the task of 
attempting to chronicle the opinions of the eccentric 
member for West Surrey. Are they not recorded for 
future ages in the chronicles of Hansard ? Once or 
twice the Times was guilty of the folly of attempting 
to write him down ; but in this country you cannot 
write down a statesman with an aristocratic connexion 
and a good estate. Mr. Drummond was more than 
the Times imagined, and hence its ridicule was thrown 
away. Mr. Drummond was not a statesman in the 
common acceptation of that term. You could never 
fancy him, with a patient air, tying up red tape, and 
doing the work of the Circumlocution-office. Still less 
was he a party man ; for if he sat on one side of the 
House, he generally voted on the other, and his speech 
was no index to his vote. Nor was he a worshipper 
of public opinion, nor did he stand forth as its repre- 
sentative in the House. He was merely a country 
gentleman, cultivated into a paradox — at all times 
consistent in his aim at originality in politics and 



Sir Charles Napier. 399 

theology — with a tone of extravagance canght in the 
prophetic conferences of his earlier years ; a man with 
a keen perception of the vanity of practical politics, 
and yet not strong enough to attain nnto something 
j)urer and better. 

SIR CHARLES NAPIER. 

You are standing in the lobby of the House of Com- 
mons about four p.m. — ^just as the Speaker has passed 
by in all the pomp and majesty due to his awful rank, 
and are watching the varieties of costume and figure 
in which honourable M.P.^s rejoice. We will suppose 
it is the middle of the summer, and that the younger 
M.P.^s are got up in the most expensive and fashion- 
able style. No one on the face of the earth dresses 
better than the English gentleman, and if you Avant 
to see the finest specimens of that splendid animal, you 
cannot do better than stand for an hour or two, where 
now, mentally, we have placed you. A very odd and 
curious figure approaches : it is that of an old man — 
short and stout, very bent, leaning heavily on a stick. 
Look at the man's dress. He docs not ruin himself 
with tailors' bills. That old straw hat on his head is 
dear at a shilling ; that tweed slop never could have 
cost more than a pound when new; that yellow waist- 
coat and those white trousers evidently have seen 
bv^tter days. Look at the man's face. It is broad, 
(thecrful — like that of most sailors — almost rollicking 
in its expression ; some old captain, you say, come to 



400 Deceased Members. 

stare about him. But look ! lie has passed the door- 
keeper. Surely the latter gentleman will call him 
back ! By no means. The rough old sailor is no 
other than Sir Charles Napier. 

" Ben Block/^ says Tom Dibdin^ " was a veteran of 
naval renown.^^ The same might have been said of Sir 
Charles Napier. But Sir Charles Napier had this ad- 
vantage over Ben Block — that he got into Parliament, 
and had a name as familiar in St. Stephen^s as on the 
qiiarter-deck. 

Sir Charles Napier had good blood in his veins. He 
was a descendant of the inventor of Logarithms ; was 
born on the 6th of March, 1786; entered the navy at 
the age of thirteen ; was a post-captain at twenty- three, 
and in 1815, when the Euryalus, which he commanded, 
was paid off, was made a C.B. In 1829 he went to 
sea again, in the command of the Galatea — of the 
seedy, dirty appearance of which naval men still talk. 
In 1830 Sir Charles took command of the fleet of 
Don Pedro, and captured the fleet of Don Miguel, off 
St. Vincent, and thus helped to establish that precious 
Spanish Government which was a scandal to our age. In 
the Syrian war, in 1840, Napier was commodore under 
Sir Robert Stopford, who commanded in the Mediterra- 
nean. Here he did considerable service. The landing 
at D' Journie, the captm'e of Beyrout and Sidon, and the 
bombardment of Acre, were all owing to his instru- 
mentality ; and at Alexandria he astonished the liberat- 
ing squadron by running in under a flag of truce, and 



Sir Charles Napier. 401 

concluding a convention with INIehemet Ali, out of his 
own head, which, in spite of its irregularity, was con- 
firmed by the authorities at home. He returned to 
England full of popularity, and was brought into Par- 
liament as member for INIarylebone. He had before 
that time unsuccessfully contested Portsmouth and 
Greenwich. He took the command of the Mediterra- 
nean fleet, and retired from Parliament. The Russian 
war broke out. He went up the Baltic and did 
nothing. The men of South wark thought he was 
badly used, and sent him into Parliament. 

The author of '' Singleton Fontenoy " gives us a^ 
graphic sketch of Sir Charles as a sailor. Singleton 
is off Beyrout, and is sent on board a very dirty ship 
for orders. " Singleton, having copied the order, 
went on deck and ordered his boat to be called along- 
side. While waiting for it he saw a figure emerge 
from the cabin under the poop. There was a sensation 
on deck, and my hero perceived at once that the figure 
was that of a Great Man. He was dressed in a rather 
seedy uniform, and had an awkward stoop. His face 
was eccentric, but expressed power. He crossed his 
hands behind his back, and began to pace the deck 
with a gait that was as remarkable as everything else 
about him. It was Benbow with a dash of Garil)aldi." 
Sir Charles also has painted a portrait of himself, but 
in a more flattering style. In 1851 he collected 
and republished all the letters he had sent to the 
Times, the Sun, and other newspapers, under the title 

D D 



402 Deceased Members. 

of " The Navy, its past and present State/^ It is 
hardly possible to conceive anything more vainglorious 
than Sir Charleses assertions. A few paragraphs taken 
at random will suffice. " Had I not displayed energy 
and boldness, the probability is that this country 
would have been involved in war and our foreign policy 
overthrown/' " I dethroned Don Miguel. Had the 
battle of Cape St. Vincent been lost, Don Miguel 
would have been on the throne of Portugal, the dynasty 
of Louis Philippe shaken to its centre, and most pro- 
bably Lord Grey's administration.''-' " I upset the 
Grand Prince of Lebanon, the ally of Mehemet Ali, 
defeated Mehemet's son, and drove his troops out of 
the mountain.^' " My services are unsurpassed by 
those of any admiral on the list — I think I may say, 
without fear of contradiction, that they have had 
more influence on the state of Europe than those of 
any other officer in the navy.-*' " The battle of Cape 
St. Vincent changed the dynasty, as well as the whole 
political face of Europe.^'' But for him, Sir Charles 
assures us, "the Syrian expedition would have failed. 
Acre would not have been attacked, war with France 
would have been inevitable, our policy overthrown, 
and with it the Melbourne Administration. '^ Such was 
the gallant admiraFs modest assurance ! 

Some people called Sir Charles the modern Bombas- 
tes. He reminded me of a hiimbler character, one 
Thomas Codd. The reader asks who was the last-named 
gentleman ? I will endeavour to answer that question. 



Sir Charles Najjier. 403 

There lived, many years ago, in a certain city in the 
south of Ireland, an odd personage whose real name 
was a mystery, but who was popularly known by the 
name of Tom Codd. Now, like Sir Charles, he be- 
lieved that all the great events that had taken place iu 
Europe dm-ing his own time were owing to him. He 
was consulted by every statesman in Europe, From 
him the Duke of Wellington derived the plans of his 
most successful campaigns. It was his advice that 
prevailed in the councils of Europe. The wags of 
the city in question encouraged the poor man in his 
delusions to such a pitch that he verily believed the 
world could not go on without him. He preserved, 
says the writer from whom I take my account, his 
delusions to the last moment of his life, and he died 
in the full belief that he was the wisest and most influ- 
ential man of his age. In naval matters, to compare 
greatt hings with small. Sir Charles was, I fear, another 
Tom Codd. 

Sir C. Napier was a capital illustration of the truth of 
the old adage, " Second thoughts are best \" South- 
wark elected him at the bidding of the Morning Ad- 
vertiser, and because Southwark deemed he had a 
grievance. It is to the credit of Southwark that it 
should thus sympatliize with Avhat it deems the victim 
of a wrong ; but it w ould be to the credit of the South- 
wark collective brains if they recollected that impulse 
is by no means a safe rule of action. A wider know- 
ledge of human nature should have taught Soutlnvark 

u D 2 



404 Deceased Mem h ers. 

that the man "who is eternally boasting his own merits 
has but few merits ; and that the man who wails his 
wrongs on the house-top generally has few wrongs to 
be redressed. On their own merits modest men are 
dumb. The woman who comes to you in the street, 
with an expression of abject misery in her face, with 
three children in her arms, whom she pinches all the 
while, and with a tale of villany on the part of a 
monster of a husband, who has left her all forlorn — 
is a female of questionable repute, and has hired the 
children at a moderate sum per day ; if, in your 
morning walks, you give a cripple as you deem him 
something for charity, in the evening the impostor, 
over a jollier supper than your limited means will 
enable you to procure yourself, will be laughing at you 
as a precious flat. The public is constantly imposed 
on. It is often giddy and thoughtless as a child. It 
is the loudest rant the Marylebone householder will 
most rapturously endorse. It is only education and 
intelligence that can teach men to detect the cloven 
foot under the mask of the popular tribune. 

What, it may be asked, had Sir Charles done that 
he should take the vacant place of Sir W. Molesworth T 
Sir W. Molesworth — no one can deny it — was a states- 
man ; Sir Charles was nothing of the kind. He was a 
sailor in search of promotion. Not engaged in his 
profession, he had a seat in Parliament. Immediately 
professional advancement was offered him, his seat in 
Parliament was resigned. A war breaks out ; amidst 



Sir Charles Napier. 405 

a wonderM flourisli of trumpets Sir Charles is de- 
spatched to the Baltic ; the Reform Club gives a 
dinner to the naval hero^ who declares over his cups 
that he will either be at St. Petersburg, or in a place 
that shall be nameless, in a month. The time passes, 
and Sir Charles is neither in one place nor the other ; 
the nation strains itself to listen, but no sound of 
victory is borne to us over the tideless waters of the 
Baltic, and at length Sir Charles returns home —Sir 
James Graham would not let him fight the Russians, 
and Sir Charles hauls down his flag, and tells us he is 
an injured man. Sir Charles is lifted into Parliament, 
to have his revenge and impeach Sir James ; but the 
House listens, laughs when the old admiral begins 
swearing, and finally is counted out. That Sir Charles 
did nothing he argued was not his own fault. He 
tells us he had a bad crew ; it is a bad workman that 
quarrels with his tools. I question whether the infa- 
mous press-gang gave Nelson a better lot. That fleet 
that lay a summer in the Baltic, 

" Idle as a painted ship, 
Upon a painted ocean," 

was got together with some difficulty, cost the nation 
some money, and was expected to do something. Lord 
John Russell, it seems, on one occasion intimated that 
Sir Charles evinced a want of discretion. Certaiidy 
this was not the case as regards the Baltic campaign. 
An excessive discretion is a little out of place m war. 



406 Deceased Members. 

An excessively discreet man would not go to war at 
all — would take to farming or shop-keeping rather 
than become a warrior^ and go in for glory and can- 
non-balls. Sir Charles — if the Sir Charles of old — 
would have won in his Baltic campaign either a 
peerage or Westminster Abbey. Sir Charles had more 
valour in his youth. 

We pass on to other days : to Nelson expecting 
every man to do his duty ; to Blake leaving politics to 
the Parliament^ and telling the seamen, " It is not 
our business to mind state affairs, but to keep foreigners 
from fooling us V In these days of magnificent pro- 
mises and puny performances — when our most for- 
midable sea-captains are only formidable with their 
pens, when their greatest achievement is to keep a 
fleet out of harm^s way, when the finest fleet the world 
ever saw sails upon the Baltic as if it were so many 
yachts on a pleasure trip — it is well to look back to 
the time when English ships were not afraid of stone 
walls ; when the Dutch were driven from the sea — 
when Spain, and France, and Italy trembled at the 
sight of the red cross of the Commonwealth — when 
Algerine pirates, of bloody lives and natures, freely 
gave up Christian captives — when, as a writer of the 
time expresses it, " England was everywhere held in 
terror and honour V The review will measure the 
exact difference between a Blake and a Napier ; it will 
do more — it will indicate, in one department of public 
life, a falling off piteous and sad indeed ! 



/Sir Charles Ncqner. 407 

Sir Charleses popularity, we fear, is of an evanescent 
character. It is true he bore a well-known name, but 
it was the war with Mehemet AH that made him 
popular. Sir Charles came victorious out of the 
affair, and we welcomed home the conquering hero, 
forgetful all the while that we had thus destroyed 
what promised to have been a rising empire, one 
which, taking the place of Turkish weakness and 
venality, would have been in time a natural barrier to 
Russia in the East. 

The old school of sailors found an admirable repre- 
sentative in Sir Charles. Young fellows who went to 
sea at an early age, from schools in which they learned 
nothing or next to nothing, during our fighting days 
were in great demand, and did the state good service. 
They are in these days of education and competition 
in the civil ser\ice very rare ; but of the old school it 
may be remembered that the first gentleman of the 
age, as his toadies called him — that poor bloated, dissi- 
pated prince, at whom we all are so ready to throw stones 
— while deeply engaged in solving the question as to 
the cut and colour of the garments of naval officers, 
gave up the attempt in despair, exclaiming, with an 
oath, that dress them how you will, it is impossible to 
make them look like gentlemen. Well, these men 
never turned out great statesmen ; even the gallant 
Nelson did not shine when he exchanged his proper 
business for diplomacy and considerations of national 
policy. Jack ashore is proverbially easily duped, and 



408 Deceased Members. 

is much given to play the fool. But^ unfortunately, 
an admiral^ like a lawyer,, must have a place in Par- 
liament. Unless he has one he has little chance of 
promotion; and now-a-days, as the liberal is the win- 
ning side, the number of adherents to popular princi- 
ples is encouraging or alarming according to the point 
of view. 

Sir Charles was a rough, jolly, free-and-easy old 
gentleman. He would shake hands with his sailors ; he 
would rush into a peace meeting, as I have seen him 
do at Edinburgh, and make a good fight on behalf of a 
standing army and navy ; he would stick to his own 
opinion, however unpopular, and would, in very plain 

language, bid you be if you didn^t like it. He was 

very honest, considering that he represents a popular 
borough. It is true, on one occasion he did preside 
at a Sunday School meeting (the Dissenters are strong 
in Southwark), but he boldly voted against the bill 
for the repeal of the Paper Duty, instead of, like the 
majority of M.P.s on that occasion, sending up the 
bill with a small majority as a hint to the Lords to 
throw it out. These are my honest opinions, said an 
American candidate, but if not those of my hearers 
they can be altered. Sir Charles Napier did not act 
in that way. You never caught him at anything 
sneaking or underhand. But, after all, honesty, and 
bluutness, and dash do not constitute a statesman. 
Other qualities are requisite. To these Sir Charles 
could lay no claim. I fear he was indebted, after all. 



Sir Claries Napier. 409 

for liis public position^, such as it was^ chiefly to his own 
efforts to secure employment and place, by his con- 
stant attacks on Government, and by his obstinate 
proclamation of his merits. That he would pass away and 
be forgotten — that he would leave no impress on his age 
— that he would never rise to the rank of statesman was 
very clear. No one listened to his speeches ; they were 
all on the same subject, in almost the same words, and 
very clear to most men, as soon as he got into Par- 
liament, all set to the same tune. There is nothing like 
leather, was the one unvaried cry ; and, to judge from 
appearance, it really mattered little to the gallant ad- 
miral whether men listened or not ; whether they 
approved or condemned. There he stood drawling 
away, on the same seat in the gangway as Mr. Horsmau, 
just below the Manchester party. M.P.s studied par- 
liamentary reports, got up and went out, found their 
way into the lobby or the smoking-room, but Sir 
Charles was not discouraged, and would have his say — 

" He is an ancient mariner, 
And lie stoppeth one of three," 

says Coleridge. The Ancient Mariner of the House 
of Commons was not so fortunate. I question if he 
gained the attention of one of thirty. Lord Clarence 
Paget was obliged to listen and reply, but no one else 
did. On the Avhole Sir Charles belonged to the past. 
He was born in fighting times, and bred to figliting. 
He harped on one string till he became a little behind 
his age. When he became an M.P. the times were 



410 Deceased Members. 

altered ; the old days were gone, the old ideas ex- 
ploded, the old watchwords lost ; and, like the bold 
Sir Bedivere, he might have exclaimed — 

" And I, the last, go foi'tli companionless, 
And the days darken round me, and the years. 
Amongst new men, strange faces, other minds." 

SIR CORNEWALL LEWIS. 

Mr. Disraeli tells us literature and statesmanship of 
a high order are not incompatible. He quotes Julius 
Csesar as an example in ancient times. Our parlia- 
mentary history is rich in illustrations of the same 
truth. There was a prophecy, when the Reform Bill 
was being agitated, that, in this respect, the character 
of the House of Commons would much deteriorate. 
At present such does not appear to have been the case. 
The subject of this sketch has written much, and has 
led the life of a hard student. He has published works 
on " The Romance Languages,^^ on " The Use and 
Abuse of Political Terms," on " Local Disturbances and 
the Irish Church Question," on " The Government of 
Dependencies," on " The Influence of Authority in 
Matters of Opinion," on " Methods of Observation and 
Reasoning in Politics," on '^^The Credibility of Early 
Roman History ,^^ an edition of the fables of Babrius, 
an old Greek writer of whom nothing is known, and 
the time of whose existence is mere matter of conjec- 
ture ; besides, he has edited the ^' Edinburgh Review.^' 
It is clear, then, Sir George Lewis was a hard stu- 



Sir Come wall Leivis. 411 

dentj and that he was pre-eminently a literary man ; 
and that he was not unfitted for official life is evident 
from a glance at his Parliamentary career. 

In 1847 he entered Parliament as M.P. for Here- 
fordshire, ha^dng been for some time a Poor-Law 
Commissioner. He was Secrc'tary to the Board of 
Control from November, 1847, to May, 1848, when he 
was appointed Under-Secretary for the Home De- 
partment. In July, 1850, he became one of the 
Secretaries to the Treasury, which office he held until 
the resignation of Lord John RusselFs ministry in 
Februaiy, 1852. At the election of that year he was an 
unsuccessful candidate for Herefordshire, and at Peter- 
borough soon afterwards ; but, upon the death of his 
father, in February, 1855, he obtained the seat which 
the late baronet had occupied in Parliament, as mem- 
ber for the Radnor boroughs. Upon the memorable 
resignation of the Chancellorship of the Exchequer 
by Mr. Gladstone in February, 1855, Sir G. C. Lewis 
was appointed to that office, and then filled the important 
post of Home Secretary. Such a man, it was evident, 
must have had some sort of official aptitude ; must have 
been something more than a respectable Whig baronet, 
or a decent literary man. He could not have been in 
office so long unless he had made his mark as an 
administrator. It is not mere favouritism that pitches 
men into foremost places in Parliament. A premier 
may be a nonentity, as was the Earl of Liverpool, or 
the Duke of Portland : but there must be merit in his 



412 Deceased Members. 

officers, or lie and his Cabinet would cut a sad figure. 
Writing in 1817, of the new ministry, Lord Ward 
says, " Their prodigious success, which, without at all 
meaning to deny their merits and abilities, must be 
allowed by all reasonable men to have been vastly 
beyond their merits, and beyond their abilities, had 
made their underlings insolent, and the House too 
obedient/-* Well, in these days noble lords cannot 
thus write. Ministers don^t achieve great successes; 
indeed, they find it hard to hold their own ; and if in 
talent for debate and legislation they are no match for 
their opponents, they may be sure that their term of 
office is not for long. Lord Palmerston, when Pre- 
mier for the first time, tried to do all the work him- 
self, and hence it was he broke down. In the forma- 
tion of his second Cabinet he showed more sagacity. 
" Whenever difficult times come,^^ writes the noble 
lord whom I have already quoted, " the greatest 
speaker in the House of Commons must have con- 
siderable weight ;" and the greater the oratorical 
power of the Cabinet — other things being equal — 
the greater is the chance of its stability and success. 
As a debater Sir Cornewall Lewis most wonderfully 
improved. When he first took his place on the 
Treasury benches he seemed the incarnation of red 
tape — ^just the sort of man to sit in a dark, dingy 
closet in Downing Street, and read official reports and 
parliamentary blue books all day long. I could 
imagine he could write one with the greatest ease. 



Sir Corncwall Leiois. 413 

I am sure the '' Edinburgh " under his management 
grew as dull as one — duller it could not be. The learned 
gentleman looked as if he had studied^ and written, 
and read till all life had left him. " There was no 
speculation in his eye ;" he looked brown and mouldy, 
as if he knew little of fresh air and the light of day. 
Were he ever taken poorly in the House of Commons 
you would have exclaimed — as was said by a wit of 
another inveterate parliamentarian — " Give him the 
journals to smell to." He spoke in a slow, solemn, 
uninteresting way ; and even when he was Chancellor 
of the Exchequer, and had the mysteries of a budget 
to unfold, it seemed impossible for him to rouse himself 
into life, yet it would not have been diflBcult for him to 
have done so. OutvTardly, he was tall and well formed 
— a man in the prime of life ; nor did he hesitate, 
and hem, and haw, and repeat himself; nor could it 
be said that he was unlearned, and not a master of 
literary style, nor that the subject was dull and 
uninteresting, for, if there be one thing more than 
another in the course of the parliamentary session 
in which all Englishmen, high and low, rich and 
poor, take a deep interest, and are really anxi- 
ous about, it is the Budget ; yet, expounded l)y tlic 
right honourable baronet, it must frankly be confessed 
that it was terribly " stale, flat, and unprofitable." In 
the ensuing session quite a change for the better seemed 
to have come over Sir Corncwall Lewis. In debate 
he turned out to be quite smart and ready, and, on 



414 Deceased Members. 

one occasion, lie even achieved success as a wit. It 
may be remembered tbat on one occasion all England 
was excited by tbe great international contest between 
Sayers and Heenan. Whilst some joyfully looked 
forward to it as something grand, and worthy of a 
place in Homeric poems, others deprecated it as a 
disgrace and a shame to a country so Christian, and 
advanced, and enlightened as our own. In the British 
House of Commons both opinions were entertained, 
and those who maintained the latter were very anxious 
that the whole affair should be put an end to. Fore- 
most among this latter class was Mr. Scully, an exem- 
plary and well-known Irish M.P. Such a scene he 
considered most disgraceful, and one that would not 
be permitted in his country. He indignantly asked 
if the Home Secretary was not prepared to interfere 
with the strong arm of the law. Sir Cornewall 
Lewises reply was a masterpiece, and his delicate 
allusion to the use of the shillalagh as, at any rate, 
quite as censurable as the English fist, was understood, 
and very much enjoyed by the House, and created 
considerable amusement. It was certainly one of the 
happiest repartees administered that session, and showed 
that if the right hon. baronet wished, he had only 
to shine as a ready, and accomplished, and smart de- 
bater. Practice, in his case, it was clear, makes perfect. 
Lord Bacon tells us, " Reading makes a full man, 
writing a correct man, and speaking a ready man /' 
and as Sir Cornewall Lewis had ample experience 



Sir Cornewall Lewis. 415 

of the ttree systems, he was naturally expected to take 
a high position. In an eminent degree he abounded 
with the materials out of which good speaking might 
be made. His main fault was a tendency to be doc- 
trinairCj to forget the feelings and prejudices of Eng- 
lishmen, to reason too much like the philosojiher 
in his closet, and to forget to make allowance for the 
infirmities of human nature. Thus, in the Census 
Bill he suiFered a signal defeat. It was intimated 
that instead of getting the returns of attendants 
at churches and chapels of all denominations, on 
one particular Sunday, as the best way of arriving at 
the strength of the various religious denominations, 
the fau'est plan would be to get each person to add to 
the particulars of his age and occupation, his religious 
profession, Churchman or Dissenter, as the case might 
be. The Church party rather supported this idea; 
indeed the suggestion was supjiosed to have ema- 
nated from them. Dissenters immediately took the 
alarm. Demonstrations and counter-demonstrations 
were made, and, at length. Sir Cornewall Lewis had 
to get up in his place in the House of Commons, and 
state that the obnoxious clause would be withdrawn, 
adding his surprise that it should have been so un- 
palatable, as such a clause was in force in other 
countries, and, as an illustration, he referred to Austria, 
as unpopular a way of suppcjrting his favourite sclicme 
as, perhaps, could well be imagined. This was a mis- 
take which a man far less learned in ancient history 



416 Deceased Metnhers. 

would have avoided ; but students, wlien tliey turn 
statesmen, are apt to commit such blunders ; they are 
apt to get cloudy and foggy — a state of mind wbich 
the severe ordeal of a British House of Commons is, 
however, very inimical to, and under the salutary in- 
fluence of which Sir Cornewall Lewis became more 
practical and ready every day. 
Horatio says to Hamlet — 

" I am more an antique Roman tlian a Dane." 

Sir Cornewall Lewis might have said the same. He re- 
minded you much in some respects of PlutarcVs heroes. 
His classical studies gave him a classical turn. He 
borrowed the indifference of the ancients to com- 
mon people and common matters ; he coveted not the 
profanum vulgus; he seemed to feel himself above its 
censure or praise. In a parliamentary crisis he was 
calm and unmoved. He would have explained away to 
Brutus the apparition of the phantom which appeared 
to him as he was about to cross over fi'om Asia with 
his army, just as did " Cassius, who followed the 
doctrines of Epicurus, and was accustomed to dispute 
about them with Brutus.^^ It is a grand thing to 
have reached that serene height where, lifted up im- 
measurably above your fellows, you can look down calm 
andunmoved on the crowdtoiling and moiling in the dust 
and dirt below. Such a state of mind is essential to a 
first-class official. Sir Cornewall Lewis had reached this 
point, such was his rare philosophy, and he found it as a 



The at. Hon. Sidney Herbert. 417 

precious pearl in value in the Home Office. The minister 
in that department is not a little subject to popular 
pressure. Ruined agriculturists — manufactm-ers and 
mill-owners on the verge of bankruptcy — metropolitan 
grievance-mongers, and their name is Legion — all 
look on hiTTi as their prey. He has to tone down 
the popular mind ; to harmonize official denials with 
non-official demands ; in other words, in the language 
of the railway world, he has to act the part of buffer 
in the parliamentary train. For this work an antique 
Roman is much to be preferred to a Dane, and for 
this work Sir CornewaU Lewis was fitted in an eminent 
degree. 

THE RT. HON. SIDNEY HERBERT.* 

As regards ourselves, perhaps the most responsible 
post in the ministry is the Secretary of the War De- 
partment. No one supposes that England is in any 
danger of invasion — no one supposes for a moment 
that a successful invasion is possible ; but the moral 
influence of a nation greatly depends upon its display 
of physical power. If you travel in France, or con- 
verse with Germans, or indeed, with almost any class 
of foreigners, they will tell you that England has seen 
her best days ; that she does not take the high posi- 
tion among the nations of the earth she once assumed ; 
that, in short, we are used up, and only fit to play 
second fiddle to France. If we ask for proof of tliis 

* Subsequently raised to the Peerage as Lord Herbert. 

£ £ 



418 Deceased Members. 

monstrous assertion we are referred to the Crimean 
war_, but our unfriendly critics forget tliat if, at the 
firsts our oflScial system broke down — that if our brave 
men were badly officered — that if we lost them by 
thousands — that if our stores^ and plans,, and generals 
proved old and useless — public opinion had been 
aroused — efforts, such as only England can make^ were 
made^ and that we were in a condition to carry on a 
successful struggle, just as France, exhausted and 
weary, was but too glad to have recourse to peace. 
Let Europe see that our army is in a thoroughly effec- 
tive state, and Old England will be held in as much 
honour, and her alliance as earnestly desired, and her 
displeasure as deeply dreaded, as in the days of Nelson, 
or Wellington, or the other mighty heroes of the past. 
But in order that this may be the case, we need a 
man at the head of the War Department in the House 
of Commons who is above that fear of giving offence 
in high quarters which bringeth a snare — a man who 
thoroughly understands the faults of the present con- 
dition of the army — who is desirous to remove them, 
and who is determined that the English army shall be 
as effective as it is costly. When Mr. Herbert went to 
the War Office the public anxiously asked whether 
he was the man for that post ? What was known 
of him was to his credit. In a small way he had done the 
State good service. He had been " faitliful over a few 
things." For many .a useful reform, for many an extra 
comfort, the English soldier had to thank him. When 



The Bf. Hon. Sidnri/ Herbert. 419 

out of office he A'igorously supported those who advo- 
cated a better education of officers^ and especially of 
those for the staff. Besides, he dared to attack the pur- 
chase system — that most monstrous of all abuses. A War 
Minister of determined will, backed by public opinion, 
might make the English army the most perfect military 
machine in the world : but to do this he must be prepared 
to encounter the pains and enmities of the Upper Ten 
Thousand. He must be prepared to make sacrifices 
of the severest character : his self-reliance would be 
put to a very terrible trial, and in Parliament he would 
be worried almost to death. Even at the Horse Guards 
— where, from the position of the present Commander- 
in-Chief, he might naturally look for sympathy and 
aid, he would receive nothing but discouragement. 
In the many debates which have taken place in the 
House of Lords, his Royal Highness the Commander- 
in-Chief did not conceal his bias in favour of the 
present system, and indeed he has often confessed his 
strong reluctance to undertake the responsibility of 
selecting deserving officers, and promoting them over 
the heads of the wealthy but less deserving. In 
Spenser's '' Fairy Queen " we read of a philosopher who 
argues \ai\x a giant; the giant has an iron mace and 
knocks him down. Will Mr. Sidney Herbert submit 
thus to be knocked down ? Such was the question 
asked in many quarters when he commenced his career 
of army reform. 

Mr. Herbert was one of the govci'niiig classes. The 

E E 2 



420 Deceased Members. 

right honourable gentleman^ born in 1810^ was son of 
the eleventh Earl of Pembroke by his second wife_, the 
only daughter of Count Woronzow^, and was half-brother 
and heir-presumptive to the present earl. I am par- 
ticular in giving Mr. Herbert's genealogy, because it 
was a favourite cry of the beery politicians of London 
that Odessa was spared because Sidney Herbert's wife 
was a Russian princess. Small politicians made con- 
siderable capital out of the charge, and one daily 
paper — ^the intelligent reader can guess which — ^laid 
considerable stress upon the fact. The real truth is, 
that in 1846 Sidney Herbert married a daughter of 
Major-General A'Court, a lady well known for a life 
of untiring activity and energy in the walks of philan- 
thropy more especially fitted for female cooperation 
and aid. 

It is said a change of blood improves the breed. 
The nobles of Spain intermarry and become intellec- 
tually and physically weak. The French occupation 
of Hamburg is said much to have aided in the produc- 
tion of a better race of citizens in that pleasant and 
thriving town. Speaking of the celebrated Irish 
Brigade, Lord Cloncurry tells us in his memoirs, 
" There could not be a better example of crossing 
blood than was afforded by these gentlemen. They 
were generally the offspring of Irish fathers and French 
mothers, and were the finest models of men I ever 
recollect to have seen.^' The fact that the true-born 
Englishman has in his veins the blood of almost every 



The Bt. Hon. Skhieij Herbert 421 

country under heaven^ may account for the beauty and 
energy of which we boast, and which even rival nations 
reluctantly confess. I believe there is nothing like 
the infusion into an English family of a little genuine 
northern blood. Sidney Herbert was emphatically a 
case in point. There was undoubtedly something very 
fine and vigorous about his personal appearance. He 
was the very model of the modern English gentleman; — 
not the port-wine drinking, anti- French, Church-and- 
King man of the last generation, under whom the 
nation was going headlong to the devil, but of a man 
born in affluence, whom Christianity has made decent, 
and whose intellectual and bodily powers have been 
strengthened and matured by the habits of a life. At 
the same time, he exhibited all the disadvantages of 
having been brought up in a class, and accustomed to 
look at everything in a distorted light. Such men are 
like men coming out of a cave, and it is long before 
they discern things as they really are. Hence, as in 
the case of Lord Stanley, half their time is devoted to 
unlearning the preposterous notions acquired at home, 
or at school or college. The parliamentary career of 
Mr. Herbert illustrated this. He began life in 1832 
as a Conservative. The first occasion of his taking 
part in a debate in Parliament was on the 20th of 
June, 1834, upon a motion for the second reading of 
a bill for the admission of Dissenters to tlic Uni- 
versities. Mr. Estcourt, the predecessor of Mr. (Ilad- 
stone in the representation of the University of Oxford, 



422 Deceased Members. 

having moved as an amendment that the bill be read 
a second time that day six months^ he was seconded 
by Mr. Sidney Herbert^ who opposed the measure 
on the ground that^ in these times of dissension of 
every species, the admission of Dissenters to the 
Universities would be nothing less than opening these 
institutions to conflicting opinions^ and making them 
the arena of religious animosity ! ! ! Again, up to the 
year 1841, Mr. Herbert's opinions on the principle 
which should guide us in our corainercial intercourse 
with the nations were decidedly protectionist. He 
opposed the motion of the then Whig government, 
to substitute for the sliding scale an eight- shilling 
fixed duty on the imports of corn, as well as Lord 
John Russeirs proposal for the reduction of the duties 
on foreign sugar ; but when Peel turned round, Sidney 
Herbert, who had been successively Secretary to the 
Admiralty and Secretary at War, with a seat in the 
Cabinet, turned round with him ; and in a debate in 
] 846, on the motion of Sir Robert Peel for a committee 
of the whole House on the customs and corn impor- 
tation acts — having been taunted by the Earl of March 
with an abandonment of his oft-expressed convictions, 
the right honourable gentleman confessed that, after 
the most mature deliberation, he had been compelled 
to take the course he had. Of course Mr. Herbert's 
constituency was protectionist to the backbone aU the 
same ; and when a general election came in 1847, an 
attempt was made to displace him in the representation 



Tlie Rf. Hon. Sidney Herlert. 423 

of the county. Mr. Herberts influence in Wiltshire 
was enormous ; and Wiltshire, in the person of its re- 
presentative, decided in favour of Free Trade. Then 
came the Crimean war, when one statesman after 
another became bankrupt. The Duke of Newcastle be- 
came the scapegoat, and was sent forth into the desert, 
bearing on his shoulders the sins of the Ministry. 
In the unpopularity of that period Sidney Herbert had 
his share ; nor was his unpopularity altogether unde- 
served. It is clear that he relied upon the misstate- 
ments of the officials, and contended that our army was 
in a prosperous condition, when in fact it was the 
reverse ; that he, and those who acted with him, never 
thought we should have had a real war; and that, 
when war actually broke out, they were not prepared 
to carry it on with vigour, or to punish Russia. 
This was another disadvantage Sidney Herbert experi- 
enced on account of his birth and breeding — he had 
lived in an ideal world, he had never stood face to 
face with the English nation. Had he lived and toiled 
as the people live and toil, he would have had a clearer 
perception of the facts of the case, and of the aim of 
the nation. The people is not a profoundly learned 
or acutely logical body ; but they had the idea, and in 
this they were right, that Turkey was wronged — that 
Russia was an aggressive power, and they believed that 
as Russia had been the mainstay of despotism on the 
continent, that a war that would have crippled Russia 
would have aided the cause of freedom and of man all 



424 Deceased Members. 

over Europe. Under sucli an idea alone was war 
justifiable. Our statesmen entered on it witli no such 
idea_, and by large classes tbe war cry was reechoed 
for even still less worthy ends — as a means of plunder 
after inglorious years of inactivity^ half-pay^ and 
peace. The war came, and the people grew mad as the 
Times told them what Sidney Herbert and the Govern- 
ment denied. Mr. Roebuck's motion was carried, and 
down went the Aberdeen Cabinet like a ship at sea. 
We remember well the night of the debate. Gene- 
rally, when the tellers come up to announce the result, 
they are cheered by the winning party as only English- 
men can cheer. For a wonder, on that occasion not 
a cheer was heard ! There was silence, amazement, 
wonder everywhere ; and then a short derisive laugh, 
as M.P.^s saw the vaunted coalition melt into thin air. 
They did well to be silent and amazed. Thoughtful 
men were already asking — of this victory who was to 
reap the fruits ? Were the Derbyites to be placed 
in power ; or was the Great Britain of the nineteenth 
century, the mother of colonies compared with which 
those of imperial E-ome were pigmies — the asylum of 
liberty denied a home elsewhere, to be the appanage 
of the House of Bedford ; or was there to be but 
a shuffle of the cards — Palmerston premier, in the 
place of Lord Aberdeen ; Lord Panmure in the room 
of the Duke of Newcastle ; Ered. Peel, vice Sidney 
Herbert? Were the old faces again to come back to us ? 
was the old fearful system of administration again to 



The Ef. Hon. Sidney Ilerhert. 425 

be continued ? ivas the old hideous weight of aris- 
tocracy again, like a nightmare, to press upon the 
land ? was there to be no hope of a better state of 
things ? Well, there was then silence, for who was 
there to cheer? Lord John Russell ignomiuiously 
escaped from the sinking ship. Sidney Herbert and 
his colleagues at any rate bravely stuck to their posts. 
Sidney Herbert was driven from office that Mr. Frede- 
rick Peel might fill his vacant place. We doubt 
whether the nation gained anything by the change. 

A man who is born to enormous wealth, like Sidney 
Herbert, owes much to society. A landlord who 
knows nothing of his property but to draw his rents 
fr'om it — who merely comes into the country to hunt, 
and then spends an idle and vicious career in the capi- 
tals of Europe, is the most dangerous possible cha- 
racter ; and in times of fierce political excitement 
would precipitate anarchy and revolution. But the 
landed class have grown philanthropic. Their aim is 
to build churches, to form schools, to caution their 
labourers against beer-shops, to send out distressed 
needlewomen to Australia, to turn ragged boys into 
decent and industrious shoeblacks, and to teach St. 
Giles the value of a cheap bath and a clean shirt. Of 
this class of philanthropists Lord Shaftesbury may be 
placed at the head ; next, jjcrhaps, was Sidney Herbert. 
He did as much, possibly, as could be done, in miti- 
gating the many hardships of the British poor, and while 
in office it must be remembered that he did much for 



426 Deceased Members. 

the improvement of the soldier's condition,, and that it 
was he who broke through routine^ despised the cla- 
mour of the religious press as to infecting the army 
with Puseyism^ and suffered Florence Nightingale and 
her noble company to proceed on their mission of 
mercy and love. 

But I .have not yet pointed him out to you. You 
will see him seated side by side with Palmerston and 
Russell and his colleagues^ on the right hand of the 
Speaker. It is the time appointed for private business. 
Military men are numerous in the House^ and as every 
man of them has his own peculiar views^ which he is 
anxious to see put in practice^ Mr. Herbert has enough 
to do to answer the numerous interrogatories addressed 
to him on all sides. Look at him on his legs. What 
a contrast to General Peel^ or Mr. Frederick Peel, 
or Sir Joshua Ramsden, and other amiable medio- 
crities ! What strength seems to lie in his well- 
formed and manly figure ! How full is his face of 
power, and sharpness, and determination ! How clearly 
and pleasantly he speaks ! In debate, how ready and 
practical he is ! What a clear ringing voice he has ! 
He may not be a great orator, but he is certainly a 
useful and able man, and such was the verdict pro- 
nounced on him — when he died as it were in lifers 
prime. 



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